Steeping times for max vg

Hi everyone,
Like mostpeople on this group I’m new here. I’ve had a few tries using the Eliquid-recipe calc and I’m doing something wrong, I’m sure.
I mix to max vg at all times, my nicotine carrier is vg too. My base supplies are from Vapable.com and concentrates from there too. I’m manly using Copella or flavor West.
I like desert type juices. Cakes, bakery or candy fruit type things. I’ve mixed single flavours of cookies and cream, Bavarian cream, banana, vanilla custard and strawberry (natural). I use 3mg nic.
I give tgem all a good shake, then leave them in the airing cupboard. Again shaking daily.
I will leave them a week then test.
Strawberry (natural) I ended up calling it Satan’s ****hole because it was hideous. Noth like strawberry, just fowel stuff. Banana, harsh on the throat. Cookies and cream tasted like bailey’s liquor.
I’m sure I’m doing something wrong. Any advice. I’ve been mixing flavours at 3%.
Thanks folks

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Props on giving a very detailed explanation of what you’re doing! With Capella and Flavor West, I’d be hard pressed to think of any of their flavorings that would work for me at just 3%.

There’s a whole database here for flavorings, and it’s AWESOME.

When looking up a flavor, I always click the recipes column to sort by the number of recipes it’s been used in so that I avoid using a duplicate entry with little data. EXAMPLE

Go ahead and click on the top result for Sweet Strawberry (Cap) in that example, I want you to notice two things.

  1. Percentage in recipes
    Here it has pulled info from every recipe someone has posted on the site that uses this flavoring. 5.4% is the current average, so that’s the average used amount in a multi-flavor mix (that counts single flavor recipes too, but don’t worry that doesn’t throw the average off that much because…

  2. Single flavor recommendations
    Here is where it lists an average from all the people who have entered a single flavor recommendation when entering this flavor in their flavor stash. A lot of people skip this, so there’s a lot less data, but in this case 58 people have suggested anywhere from 1% to 20%, but the average is 10.3%. So if you wanted to just do Cap Sweet Strawberry, 10% might be a good starting point for your test.

The other thing you can do, and I strongly recommend this, is enter the flavors you have into your flavor stash. This gives you a place to take notes on you different flavors and enables the use of the What Can I Make feature of the site.

One last thing, having your percentages too low shouldn’t result in the harshness you describe, so there may be an issue with your nic base, PG, or VG. Try vaping some of your VG by itself, try a 0 nic PG/VG mix, and then try mixing some of your nic without using any flavoring. If any of these vape horribly, the problem isn’t your flavors!

Hopefully this has not been too big a wall of text, so I will stop now before it’s much too late.

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If you are using max vg and your nic is also vg then your most likely not using enough flavoring if 3% is all your putting in the recipe, I’m not sure if that is what you meant prob not.

I mix the same way Max vg w/ vg nic I target my overall flavoring usage to be in the 10-15% range doesn’t mean it has to be but some flavors need more help so you have to use other flavors to build them up.

Sweet Sb by Capella I am wondering if this is the one your referring to as Satan’s ***hole
it needs to be in the 3-5% range and isn’t strong enough to be used as a standalone ( by itself in a mix) It requires more help use something with it like SB ripe by TFA at 2-4% then you’ll most likely want an additional flavor in there to support those two so try adding something like a cream like Capella’s sweet cream at 2%

sweet sb cap’s 4.00
SB ripe TFA 3.00
sweet cream cap 2.00

now we have 9% flavoring in the mix chances are at a max vg blend this will be decent but not over the top sweet and vibrant you may look to enhance the berries so you may then decide hmm lets try an additional berry at a lower % to fluff those strawberries up so add a raspberry or a blueberry at 1-2% your starting to see I hope that not all flavors are created equally so a standard 3% rule across the board will not suffice they have to be used in their own suggested ratio range.

http://e-liquid-recipes.com/flavor/5361
this ^ is easily one of the most used flavors it has a very broad range of availability to use, the link takes you back to the calculator where the recommended usage is saying it is commonly used in the 5-5.7 range that does not mean it has to but it is common.

Hope this is coming across as helpful.

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Vapey, all I mix is max VG. Anything with something creamy or dairy in it I steep a minimum of 14 days, but most are even better longer than that. Anything with citrus is 10 days. Candy or beverage vapes that don’t have either is minimum of 7 days. After I mix I always run in my UC for at least an hour. Shake again burp (I use plastic bottles burping is squeezing all the air out of the bottle a couple of times) burping will help get rid of the alcohol taste especially right at first. Mixing max VG I know for sure a company I used to buy from almost exclusively mixed everything that was max at 30% flavors. I was shocked at this too. I have three of his recipes he was kind enough to let me use when he shut down to move to the other side of the world. Most of my recipes are between 18 and 25% depending on the recipe. VG doesn’t carry the flavor as well as PG. I know some think I’m crazy but I’m very happy with what I do and have tried them diluted to half and there is so much flavor loss that I worked with them only to discover that my original percentages were working the best for me. I use predominantly Capella and TPA flavoring, I have recently gotten some FA and found it to be a little stronger and when using it to replace one that is already tried and true I use 1/3 to 1/2 as much. I mix by measurement not weight. My Nic is normally VG also, but I’m using some Nude Armor that was PIF’d to me that is in PG base. Not really happy with it. My body doesn’t care for PG much. I can tolerate it but as soon as it’s gone I’m back to Nicotine river’s nic.

Hope this helps a little, feel free to pm me with questions about my mixing or even if you just wanna tell me I’m nuts. :grin::joy::grin:

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My reply to this type of problem, especially using max vg, is to try using more concentrated flavors. They will standout more against the max vg base.

INW, FA, FLV and MF will hold up a lot better in a max vg base.

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Using top notch quality concentrates is always the best way to go but we didn’t necessarily have those when we first started.

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FOREVER it seems like to me. I steep a month for cream and couple weeks on fruity.

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Just planting seeds for later.

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That’s a good call ! I can remember when we all started really getting into FA and FLV and were floored at just how much they improved our juices.

I still use TFA FW Caps but MF FLV FA INW is where it’s at !

Also I did notice a difference in steep time when I went Max vg from 80/20 I steep everything around a month unless I decide to try it a lil early :laughing:

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Thanks everyone for all the useful information. I’ve read every comment and taken it all on board. Appologies for not replying sooner.
It’s tough being a noob, but I appreciate all the help and responses from this excellent community

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Don’t even worry about that! S’all good.

“Max VG” in premium juice can be as much as 20% PG because commonly flavorings are sold PG-based. Sounds like you (and @Amy2) are mixing “non-PG”. I was also trying to hold to 80/20 as I was enjoying some “max VG” premium juices, but dropped to 70/30 because of flavor. Visually I can guess the much thicker VG could even physically block what happens during steeping (chemical reaction rate) …and call for that longer steep time.

I came up with a cheap way to thoroughly mix my juices in the bottle. I looked at some of those magnetic stirrers and started thinking of all the wasted product during transfers from beakers to bottle …probably still going to make one, be meanwhile with 50 cents of stiff shiny Titanium wire I made a little whipper.

I bought some Ti wire at Vape Shop which was almost too stiff to make coils. He said it was 26 gauge but I would guess it’s more like 24 (comparing against other wire). After seeing @Dan_the_Man 's wire whip I was insprired Combined with my on-hand material (Ti wire) I quickly made my own …the goal not to lose product during mixing. …since then I have made improvements, and it works quickly and easily.

Just like making a atomizer coil, I used a 5/32" drill bit (4mm) so the coil whipper part can still fit into smaller 15ml bottles. 12" of wire is more than enough to start, with the final untwisted shaft about 6" long. At one end 10 - 12 wraps with wide spacing so the coil was about 1 1/4" long (32mm). I bent the cut tail of the coil so it was centered and tucked the cut point back inwards at the end of the coil (no sharp points to grab bottom of bottle or you). To terminate the opposite end (tail) I made a small flat diamond shape to fit in my cordless drill chuck …again about 6" of straight wire between drill and bottle (whip inserted) allows you to hold it slightly curved so drill is not directly over juice (contamination).

Standing next to a hot ultrasonic I can mix multiple bottles by quickly dunk/spin/clean my stirrer within seconds between batches. When taking it out of the bottle very little juice stays on the wire (spin it a little!), so cleans in seconds, and very little waste. In a clear glass bottle you can actually see what’s happening! Before you start you can see the swirling viscosity variations of PG/VG/flavorings/nic. As you spin it gets cloudy and in about 30 seconds it goes perfectly clear.

One thing you can’t do is just spin the thing while it’s not supported by a bottle. The lack of balance will immediately make it go sideways/bend. While cleaning just support it halfway with your gloved fingertips. Many apologies @VapeyVapeyMan for the TL:DR but I think a thorough mixing would have a real impact on your final product …after following all the above spot on advice.

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with Max VG, make sure your wick is really loosely pack, otherwise, everything gets burn before reaching your mouth and that’s when you get bad taste and very dry hits.
I advise using only RTA with max VG and max opening on air hole.

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And as usual I have updated my steeping ideas yet again

Fruits punches and sodas 7 to 10 days with a taste at ( if I can make myself wait that long) 3 or 4 days for initial taste.

Fruit mixes with alcohol flavors ie bourbon champagne, and rum 10 to 14 days. ( if I can make myself wait that long) a week for initial taste

Creamy things like milkshakes or cream pies pudding flavors 2 to 4 weeks depending on how creamy they are with a taste at ( if I can make myself wait that long) 2 weeks for initial taste

Creamy things that have custard flavors in them or alcohol flavors in them 2 to 3 weeks then evaluated and at least one more set of two weeks.

Bakery type items cereals, cakes, cookies, bars and bakery with fruit like jam flavors in them 2 weeks to evaluate and another two weeks for a final decision as to how much longer. Or to vape away

Anything that sucks leave for 6 to 8 months then give to wife to see if she likes it. lmao

I know it seems like it takes forever but remember
GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE THAT WAIT
and my self guidelines have changed about ten times since I started down the DIY path and will probably change that many more in the next two years or so. I’ve got what I thought was an epic fail a “Hostess” lemon pie with ice cream that I made last September, wifey grabbed it by mistake the other day filled her tank took a few vapes and says to me WTF is this and why haven’t you been sharing it with me. I was as usual in the dark took a few vapes asked her what she put in she goes I don’t know the one with the light blue lid in the third row. I was pretty sure what it was and had been meaning to dump it out. Well we’ll keep that one around. However it is one of those flavors that after vaping a couple tanks you’ve had enough for a while. I’ll keep it in my active file but probably won’t make it very often. It’s almost 100 ml but only because I kept adding a little of this and a little of that trying to make it WOW well WOW time did it for me. Well enough of this book. Sorry I rambled on and on.

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hey guys! thanks for the useful information, another noob question here
how long would you steep tobaccos with max vg?
i have a premixed base max vg 0nic and a premixed base max vg 12 mg nic, nic also diluded in vg
these are the flavors i have

  • double ry4 tpa
    -dk tobacco II tpa
  • black honey tpa
  • turkish tobacco tpa
  • western (ex cowboy) tpa

im planingo on doing those ingredients separetely (1 ingredient per recipe) going half 12 nic on vg max vg, and 0% max vg

i cannot buy another brand because i live abroad, and thats the healthiest option in my country
btw: does the microwave rice speed up the process also for max vg or is it only for pg vg?
thanks!!
¨PS i would like to know which porcentages of those you recomendo fofr max vg for each of those flavors as standalone recipes

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