A beginner's journey into DiY entirely, and starting with Mixing By Weight

E-liquids Beginners
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This post is copy/pasted from the Diy_eJuice subreddit in the hopes that a beginner like me will find it a useful reference for their own start down the road. (Note: I had to strip almost all the links out to be able to post, since I’m new. Please forgive the broken formatting as a result).

I’m posting this wall of text in case it ever helps someone who is looking into starting up, and because I’m super excited about my new hobby.

A couple of weeks ago I started reading. I first started stalking the sub when /u/abdada was mentioned in relation to Medicine Flower extract, and /u/returnity made a reference to DiY in the SmogGB sub. It got me thinking that all this maybe wasn’t so hard.

Then I became slightly more educated about where the legislation (nationally and otherwise) was headed, and that prompted me to seriously read the sidebar. I asked a couple questions in the daily “Ask anything” thread (‘What would you do different from the start?’), and that lead me to buy my scale first (mix by weight!). I started collecting odds and ends, mostly on Amazon, and in the end I had almost everything I needed, and a few things I didn’t.

#Things that were, without a doubt, absolutely required:

  • The $30 scale from Amazon

  • Empty glass bottles (I had both, and I think my plastic bottles looked sketchy so went with recycled vendor bottles - it was an adventure cleaning them out

  • Flavors, VG, Nic (well, technically didn’t need the Nic, but I really do want to DiY and I use Nic!)

  • A Computer. Preferably one that I didn’t mind getting covered in FLV Spearmint or the occasional drop of something if I had an accident.

  • An e-liquid calculator! There’s a ton of good ones, but I used e-liquid-recipes.com. Invaluable tool and the MaxVG option made things so easy.

  • For some reason I ordered a set of plastic beakers. I thought these weren’t going to be useful, but I ended up using them to hold droppers, lids, syringes, etc.

  • Black nitrile gloves. These weren’t the ones the cool kids use, they were el cheapo brand on Amazon, but did the trick.

#Things that I didn’t get that I really needed:

  • Little funnels! The blunt tip syringes were fine for small amounts of VG, but when i wanted to mix larger amounts, it was a real pain. Having stored the nicotine in the freezer meant it just wasn’t going to work. I have funnels on the way and thought I could do without them for this time. I managed, but they will be really necessary going forward.

#Things I got that I didn’t really need:

  • Vials and holder. This was sort of an impulse ‘just in case’ and I didn’t use them at all. I’m actually not sure what I would use them for. I have bottles, I’m not mixing by volume…

  • Pipettes. I don’t have these yet either, but I don’t think I have any particular need for them so far. Flavors, VG and Nic can be dispensed directly into mixing bottle with funnels.

  • Stevia. I bought some, thinking I might want it. Definitely not necessary so far. Obviously, this probably depends on recipe, so I might use it one day.

I set up a with toolkits, secure storage for flavors, nic and tools (I especially didn’t want my huge white cat sitting on my scale) and made sure it was clean and clear in case I needed to clean up a spill.

For my very first order, I decided to not just buy the top 20 flavors on the sidebar. This new vendor Flavorah was getting a lot of buzz, and for a pretty minimal investment I got a bunch of flavors. The only problem I had was that meant I didn’t have a ton of tried and true recipes to use. There were already a few interesting ones (I’m looking at you, Alligatah) being passed around, so I wasn’t too nervous about it. When my package arrived, a couple of the bottles were leaking. I sent an email to Flavorah, and got an answer almost instantly that they’d be sending along replacements. I have a feeling the leaking bottle issue isn’t long for this world.

I got my nic from Nude Nicotine, and I only got a small bottle with a low concentration (60mg) because I’ve been well warned, and didn’t want to risk my cats or my body in my first few projects. It arrived quickly and without issue (though I, for some reason, felt the need to throw it in the freezer, which now I know I didn’t need to do with such a small bottle).

Once I got all my materials together, it was time to do my homework. I decided I wanted to test three of my flavors first. I mixed 5ml of 0 nic Flavorah Vanilla Custard, Creme de Menthe and Cured Tobacco to get an idea of what they tasted like and had fun vaping them at around 2% to get a good feel for their different characteristics.

Directly after that I went crazy and tried a couple of experiments. I liked one of them so much, I decided to mix 30ml of nicotine-laden juice.

I’m sure this is pedestrian to our veterans, but the Creme de Menthe reminded me of my favorite flavor from Cloud Provisions - a White Chocolate Mint Tobacco. So, I got lucky and on my first night of messing around, I now have a lovely ADV that I hope will get even better with age!

Colorado Cat

Thanks to all the folks here that contribute! I hope any of this drivel is useful to someone in the future.

#Shopping list

#Compiled tips from the comments (for finding easily):

  • Solvent-style dispensing squeeze bottles for VG/Nic into container on scale. Like this maybe

  • Magic eraser (melamine open-cell sponge I guess) for removing gummy residue from recycled ejuice bottles without using solvents Example

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thanks for good guide
I started with mixing by weight last week - after soon 8 months with syrins and stuff…
Was realy scared to start with weight mixing BUT hey! wish i hade done this longe time ago !! :smiley:

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Just more awesome info…really!

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Nice starters review and the vape is pretty good as well, thanks for taking your time to share. Did you get the 500gm,1000gm or 5000gm scale?

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Only the 500g has a small enough precision for smaller mixes. It has a 0.01g precision, where the others have 0.1g :slightly_smiling:

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I tried the whole magic eraser trick for removing gummy stickers. 3 erasers later and I had half a sticker off. Then I threw the bottles in the trash.

But the other day I had some bottles I really wanted to keep and the sticker was seemingly on there for good. I remembered a trick we use to remove labels applied to pieces of metal that we have to machine, and the sticker can’t be on there. WD40 makes the sticker goo come right off.

But you can’t be spraying WD40 on e-juice bottles. So I got the jug of peanut oil out of the cabinet. A few drops on a paper towel and the stickers come right off.

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Thanks for the helpful info. I have a few bottles of pre-made e-liquids from different manufacturers where I think the primary flavor/flavors are too weak, and want to fortify them with concentrates from either Flavorah or The Flavor Apprentice. I LOVE peanut butter, coffee, chocolate and cinnamon roll flavors!

I’m thinking this will be a good intro to making my own e-juices in the future. I already have empty bottles of various sizes of 10, 30, 60 and 120, so I’m pretty much set there. About all I need is a scale. The funnel I already have…a micro-mini one that was included in the empty bottle pack I got from Amazon.

Next things I’ll need: VG, PG, and nic. I love detailing my car so have a large supply of nitrile gloves, together with an apron and safety glasses. One can never be too safe when cleaning tires with a powerful all-purpose cleaner.

I read somewhere on this forum that it’s easier to use PG based nic. Not sure where that thread is, so I can’t verify.

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Easier from the standpoint that nic should be stored frozen and PG is much easier to work with when cold, especially when meting it out via syringe. No requirement either way and it’s user preference.

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