Mixing and Steeping Methods

Hi,
New to mixing my eliquids and at moment I just shake after mixing and put in cuboard
Some of my mixes come out ok some not so good
What do you guys do to mix and steep your Liquids
Cheers

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Hi and welcome! I shake and wait, shake and wait, shake and wait, then shake and vape. :grin: Never tried anything else, but it works for me.

Hmm. People do lots of things.

At this point because I’m a small batch mixer (15ml and 30ml bottles with a few 120mls) i…

Steep in hot tap water to thin out my freshly mixed recipies, then use a sawzall to shake, and steep for 1 month. I hand shake maybe one a week or every two weeks…sometimes once every three weeks. I have about 40 bottles mixed give or take 15 (I don’t want to count but they all don’t fit in the drawer lol).

Overall I steep with age.

I too use a sawzall to mix it to a foam like substance. Then I let it breath overnight roughly 12hrs. Shake it by hand every few days while I wait for 2 weeks to a month. Love the way it turns out. I get impatient and try a dropper every so often in my RDA and yea 2 weeks to a month steeps puts my juice right where I like it.

I do pretty much the same. 2 wks for most and 3,4 and longer where indicated. If it’s bad after any of the times, so be it. The mix did not work for me.

Welcome to the hobby of mixing :smile:

I have used many methods for mixing and steeping and have found varying results. Right now my favorite way is with a magnetic stirrer that heats up. I heat most liquids up until the vg thins, and certain flavors upwards of 160 F degrees, even 180 F in some cases. Not all juice responds well to heat.

However, even though I mix on the magnetic stirrer, I still do the old stand by of shaking and setting up on the shelf to let time do it’s thing. When creating new recipes I will mix two batches, one on the magnetic stirrer and one just shaken and left to steep. I do this to test flavor reactions to heat and stirring. For flavors where heat works better, it is often due to a chemical note in a flavor or alcohol in the extracts.

Magnetic stirrers aren’t cheap, the one I bought was about $200…though it can be found sometimes used for around $100. In most cases you can apply gentle heat (hot tap water, crockpot on warm) and leave your juice open to allow it to breath to remove some off notes. Cover with a cheesecloth if you are concerned about dust. Shake the liquid with the lid on, and return to the heat until you are satisfied the off scents have dissipated. Steep for up to 4 weeks before deciding how bad a juice is, and even some juices can take up to 6 months to fully mature into something amazing… most of us experienced mixers have had at least one mystery mix in a cabinet for 6 months+ – pull it out and are just blown away at how good it is. But then you know you didn’t label it and and don’t have the recipe to an amazing juice that took forever to steep. smh.

I generally try juices freshly mixed, then 48 hours, then 1 week, then once a week until I am satisfied with the steep when I normally end up vaping the whole bottle.

Sometimes there are some recipes that even with steeping can’t be saved. I’ve mixed plenty of drain juice over the years, and usually it’s how certain flavors blended together in the mix. Sometimes I can pinpoint the culprit, and adjust the recipe, but sometimes it’s just a lost cause. I’ve abandoned lots of recipe ideas because the available flavorings don’t taste how I want them to taste.

Mixing test samples of all new flavors as single flavor juices at different percentages (normally I mix 10ml or 30ml single flavor samples.) I’ll look around online to see what the average usage for that flavor is as a single flavor, then I will mix it at average % and then two more bottles with a higher and lower %. This gives me a range, and normally I can tell how the flavors will behave with other flavors at different percentages this way. It took me a little while of trial and error with this method, but once you start doing it, knowing what % to mix a flavor at based on how it smells in the bottle will start to come easy.

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I just shake the bottle with my hand (or give it to the hubby to shake while I’m mixing the next batch) but I usually make batches in the 20-60ml range. If/when I start mixing larger batches I imagine I’ll find something different, but for small batches it works fine. For steeping I throw it in a box and wait.

Mix with this little Badger guy. He’s been a great friend for awhile now.
Mix, cap and store to age.

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I use one often, for herb tinctures, beard oil, etc.

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IMO if you can let stuff steep for a few weeks, and don’t fall way behind on your mixing without having a few beloved shake and vape recipes, then fancy things like frothers, USCs, etc really are overkill.

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i personally use a magnetic mixer and then put away for awhile ill occasionally shake when i add another bottle i also do not add my nicotine until im ready to vape the juice but using a scale and mag mixer have been great i sometimes heat my liquid when its high vg but just enough to thin it out

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Started by just shaking with a sawzall, breathing and steeping for days to weeks. Worked good, recently purchased an ultrasonic machine. So far the few batches I have tried worked great. Took a straw-kiwi mix I have been vaping down to a day steep to get the same results after a week. Still new so I have a lot to play with in all areas of my steeping methods, time, temp, ultrasonic or just let sit and so on. Just having fun while doing it, all while taking notes and learning a lot.

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Well been on You Tube to research Magnetic Mixers and some great videos on there on how to make your own.
It inspired me to go in attic and retrieve an old computer and strip it down to get my bits to make my own.
2 hours later its done, did not have a 12v adaptor so tried it with a car battery and works a treat.
Just waiting for my mixing bar and Dc adaptor total cost £5.98 to give my arm a rest and mix to my hearts content lol

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thats pretty cool , it will change your diy experiance like a scale imo

LOL I use the same, only I had it for years before I ever mixed up a juice, of course I had to wash the airbrush bodypaint off it first.

When using one of those frothers, how long would you recommend mixing a 70/30 30ml batch for

I do it till it is creamy white throughout.
then I cream it again on day 2, then just leave it

Just a quick question, when making say 30ml bottles I have never left any open to breath I just mix with frother top on and steep and shake them every other day ( if I remember )
Is it best to leave all recipes to breath for a couple of hours before applying top, does it make much of a difference or not ?
Thanks

I’ve made a few very highly rated recipes here and they didn’t turn out anything like the flavour profile. In fact the flavour was very muted and didn’t taste of much at all. I’m wondering if this could be due to water bath being too hot. I’ve decided not to bother with heating for the time being.