My guess would be the cherry. I’ve not found a good cherry that doesn’t taste like cough syrup. Bing Cherry by Flavorah is pretty good, and I’ve heard good things about Inawera’s Cherries, but haven’t tried yet. I usually use TPA Jamaican Rum, but I’ve used FA before and it’s good. It’s more of a dark, spicy rum where TPA’s is a sweeter rum. I use Caps vanilla custard v1 mostly so I can’t really say what FA’s is like, but I’ve heard it’s lemony. Might try Cap’s custard or Flavorah’s instead of or in addition to the FA.
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I experienced similar harshness in some of my earlier mixes…What I do now, is this:…After my ingredients are put into the bottle…I froth the mix with a dremel tool with a crooked straw…Then let it set with the cap off overnite…This helps remove the volatiles (which contribute to harshness) that are inherent in the flavorings…Cap back on, steep…and as Brotherbob1 points out, custards for at least 3 weeks…fruits don’t take as long, but this combination has worked for me…I will also mix the creams, custards only, then froth, and steep for 2 weeks, or more, depending…then put in the fruits, quick froth, cap off for 6 hours, then steep the additional time …For me, the harshness disappeared after my post mixing routine started to develop…You can take it one step further by waiting until your liquid returns from the frothed state, back to liquid, and then put in your nicotine, so as not to oxidize your nicotine during the frothing procedure…I hope this helps… 
Thank you for your wisdom, Bob
I will mix up to 120 ml and that mix may be around approx. 4 months till finished. This type of natural steeping works great for me because this is how I vape the mix along my timeline.
With this, are you saying that you make up 120ml and then test it along the way? So you make singles and not doublers? I usually make mine up as doublers, as I have always been under the impression that when mixing, doublers is what you use, and that you only top them up when ready to vape/try. I had never considered making singles to steep seeing as the extra VG on top of the already pg/vg mix in the recipe I imagined would change the whole thing?
I’m in Australia, and so nicotine is illegal here. While I do use nicotine for my own personal doublers, when giving them to others to try (for example) 5ml to 10ml is achieved by topping it with VG alone. Unless of course I’m misunderstanding you. 
Hi JoJo,
Yeah, after I bought the dark cherry was when I read that it’s one of the more difficult flavours to find that isn’t a resemblance of cough syrup. Though me, being me I became determined to find a use for it. I decided on FA’s rum because I’m a fan of spiced rum itself and yeah, I agree, it’s a really good concentrate. Or at least, I think so. I love it and can easily vape on it alone.
I’ll make a note of Flavorah’s custard, I’ve not tried their concentrates yet. Cap I’ve found is somewhat hit and miss, especially with the amount needed to actually achieve anything worthwhile. That’s not to say all their flavours are like that though as I’ve hard their vanilla custard is pretty amazing. I’ll add them to the shopping list. I wonder if concentrate flavour collections are ever sedated. Something tells me it’s not, haha.
Hello Flavor_Alchemist,
Thank you for sharing your method, I genuinely appreciate it. I admit I’m not overly confident with the concept of a dremel tool, at least not yet anyway. Would a milk frother give the same effect? I watched a few videos and read a few things suggesting that a frothier didn’t really do anything, though I suppose they all seemed dead set on it being a way to speed up steeping, not actually to help with the compounds themselves.
I hadn’t thought of doing the creams and custards first, before adding the fruit. I wonder if that’d help with them blending better, seeing as the fruit isn’t sitting for too long… I think I’ll borrow your concept for experimentation. 
Nope, enough is never enough! LoL. Check this list of flavors. Pretty much everything here is top-notch stuff.
Hi Frosticles Black Cherry is a difficult flavor to work with. I have found less is more with it as well as the Jamaican Rum FA both do more than fine at 1% or even under. I really like to use Black Cherry but getting rid of the chemically essence can be a pain. I too ( like @Flavor_Alchemist ) mentioned give it plenty of air time. I use a magnetic mixer -regardless it needs it. I have a mix I liked a lot the only reason I don’t still vape it is because I have become pg sensitive and need to rework the recipe anyhow, I have the strawberry in the mix as well as the cola to help bring down the chemical component that comes with black cherry and the trick worked.
Let the Jamaican Rum be an accent flavor meaning try not to go to high so it just give a hint that it’s there. Then use the Black cherry at 1-2% and then let the Vanilla custard be the star the other two flavors will pick up and blend much easier. It’s a tough task but doable !
Here’s my favorite black cherry recipe. It’s private but you can see where I was layering flavors to bring up the fruitiness of the cherry but not over do it.
cherry strawberry screwball
| Ingredient | % |
|---|---|
| Black Cherry (TPA) | 2 |
| Champagne (TPA) | 5 |
| Coke FA | 0.4 |
| Red Touch (Strawberry) (FA) | 4 |
| Sour (MBV) | 2 |
| Strawberry (TPA) | 3 |
| Sweet Strawberry (CAP) | 1 |
Flavor total: 17.4%
Remember to rate it at e-liquid-recipes.com!
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No. I will mix only proven recipes in large quantities. Experimental or test recipes can be mixed in 5 ml. or less. As for “singles” and “doublers”, I’m not knowledgeable about this type of mixing and did not realize you were not using a calculator to mix to percentages.
Milk frother will work fine…Frothing does more than just speed up steeping (flavor blending/maturing with PG/VG)…It also helps in the removal of the harsh volatiles that are inherent in some flavorings…Those volatiles contribute to the harshness in your vape and the chemical taste you speak of…
The reason I am blending my creams/custards first is because they do require a longer steep time than the fruits…so I give them time to mature in the mix and then put the fruits in later for a shorter, but adequate steep time…I do this because fruits that steep TOO long tend to lose their fresh/bright essence over time, and become muted, and adversely affect my creams…So if I have a mature cream/custard mix say 2/3rds steeped and add the fruit later, I get a fresher taste in my fruit/cream blend, in addition to the mature blossomed cream…and they do interact well together for a very tasty experience…Generally I steep my creams for 2 to 3 weeks and custards for 4 to 6 weeks …Fruits I generally steep for 7 to 10 days, although there are exceptions…Flavorah fruits, I am finding, only require 4 to 6 days to be delightful…then Medicine Flower fruits require 3 weeks minimum, for me…Taste is subjective, so other mixers here may have different post-mix routines…I am just sharing what is working for me, and it is no coincidence that I was helped by many in this forum…so, in that spirit, you may just start having fun by experimenting…
I have seen Amy putting up a few recipes on this thread, as well, and can vouch for her work…so you may want to give her ideas a try, as well…and others here have given you some excellent experience to draw on…I hope you start tasting some good stuff…
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[quote=“JoJo”]
Check this list of flavors. Pretty much everything here is top-notch stuff…[/quote]
I was having a look at this list the other day, it’s part of the reason why I started dumbing down flavours. As for concentrates… well, I really wanted to start out with just a couple of flavours so to not overwhelm myself, that failed, dismally hahaha.
[quote=“Amy2”]
…Black Cherry is a difficult flavor to work with. I have found less is more with it as well as the Jamaican Rum FA both do more than fine at 1% or even under. I really like to use Black Cherry but getting rid of the chemically essence can be a pain…[/quote]
Hi Amy,
Thank you for sharing! I admit I genuinely didn’t take into consideration using less of the Jamaican Rum, I think because it’s such a lovely/smooth flavour it didn’t seem to be one to use less of. I’ll definitely make some re-arrangements and give it a shot with less.
Ah, I get you now.
For clarification (must be an aussie thing) I do use a calculator. Over here we generally have two “levels” (for lack of a better word) of juice. I believe it’s due to the fact you’re not allowed to sell nicotine here.
A single is a mixed flavour ready to vape. (So if you’re grabbing 30mls, it is 30mls of liquid). Doublers have double the concentrate, and are intended to be diluted with half of your own pg/vg mix. (So if you buy a 30ml bottle, it has 15ml of juice in it, to which you then top up with your own vg/pg/nicotine mix.) It’s a similar concept to cordial (or what I think you call Squash?). The less water you add the stronger it is, and visa-versa. While you could vape on undiluted it’d be a bit sickly. I hope this makes sense.
[quote=“Flavor_Alchemist”]
…Frothing does more than just speed up steeping (flavor blending/maturing with PG/VG)…It also helps in the removal of the harsh volatiles that are inherent in some flavorings…
…The reason I am blending my creams/custards first is because they do require a longer steep time than the fruits…so I give them time to mature in the mix and then put the fruits in later for a shorter, but adequate steep time…I do this because fruits that steep TOO long tend to lose their fresh/bright essence over time, and become muted, and adversely affect my creams…[/quote]
Very interesting! And well thought out too. Sounds like something worthwhile to take on board, it makes complete sense and I imagine is the way to go about things. I was a bartender for a good many years, and as one making cocktails you become very meticulous when creating new drinks, it seems to have rolled over to e-juice making too, so this concept I appreciate a lot. So again, thank you.
(and thank you again, to the rest of you. You’re lovely!)
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Oh, one last thing if I may…
Lets say for example, you have ,my recipe above, it only has the one custard in it. So would that mean you calculate up the recipe, and only add the custard/pg/and vg %'age to it, and then say… 3 weeks later you come back and add the %'age of fruit flavours to it (alone, with nothing else) and then let it sit again for another week?
Whoa. So you are essentially mixing ready to vape juices? Is this correct? That is not what 99%+ on this board are doing. . .I’m not sure that you don’t understand, but I like to hear myself type so. . .
The flavors that we buy are generally quite concentrated. You cannot even think about vaping them, even if diluted with an equal amount of vg/pg. It would set your lungs on fire. When we use a flavor at, say, 1%. . .it is 1% of the entire bottle of vapeable e-juice. IE, 0.3ml out of 30ml total. In this example, the rest would be vg/pg. Some flavors are so strong that they must be used below 1%. But, most recipes are 5-20% total flavor depending on brand/taste, meaning that they are topped up with more/much-more than 4x as much vg/pg base once all the flavoring is added.
Kangaroos, sugar gliders, death adders, and singlers and doublers. You guys really go nuts with the whole “we’ve got our very own continent” thing, don’t ya?
Helpful?
Oh, and speaking with authority for the entirety of America as I often do: Diluting alcohol, of any strength, just means that you have to inject that much more into your veins. It’s just not done here unless you’re kinda wealthy in the new/clean needle department. I may not be drinking properly. . .
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That is correct…and any other ingredient that I may have decided to leave out at the time of my initial mix…That way, my fruits are not “oversteeping” to the point of losing their fresh taste (over ripening) or mute, BUT they will still blend well with the custard…
You might consider downloading (for free) a program called EjuiceMeUp…It is an excellent Juice calculation program…It allows you to mix by volume and by weight…Very user friendly and accurate
Haha, yes, yes we do.
I think I misunderstood, and now you’re (perhaps?) misunderstanding because it seems I may not have explained properly.
The post Bob made, I read that as an entire mix is completed before steeping. As in, a mix already made up that has nicotine, etc. in it. Meaning you can simply start vaping on it once it’s ready.
Analogy and story time 
Story:
When I first started vaping, I would buy e-juice from the states, because it was already made for you with nicotine and whatnot in it. So I’d say… buy 30ml from Apollo, it’d arrive as 30ml of juice, I’d let it sit then I’d vape away. I didn’t have to add or do anything to it, because it was made for me. Here, you can’t do that. So…
When if I go into a store to buy e-juice, I’ll grab a 30ml bottle, which -only- has 15ml of liquid in it. It’s considered double concentrate, because it’s not diluted, hence it’s called a doubler. Now… At the store I can have the ‘extra’ 15ml topped up with VG so it’s good to go. OR I can take it home and add my own nicotine and VG to it. Thus giving me my 30ml. Either way, you’d not vape that 15ml alone, unless you’re bonkers.
What you’re describing sounds the same as with here, I think? No way would one vape straight concentrate with nicotine. That’s madness! 
We get exactly the same concentrates as you do.
Analogy:
Take my recipe above, for example. I punch all that into the handy-dandy calculator, and then pick how many mls I to make right? In this scenario, it’s 15ml. When I do mine, it has 0 nicotine content. So lets say, following the mini story above, I’m making a 30ml bottle to sell. I’d calculate out the recipe to give me 15ml in total.
It would then be up to the person buying it to add their own nicotine/vg/pg mix from home if they prefer, or I could simply top it up with VG and/or PG for them. (0 nicotine). So the customer either walks away with their doubler, or they walk away with the singler (made and ready to vape.)
Does that make sense?
SO… (this is the end of the post, I promise!)
When I make up my recipe for testing, I’d do 5ml and I let it steep. When I want to try it, I need to add VG and/or nicotine to it before trying it, which would give me a total of 15ml all up to vape on.
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Thank you.
EjuiceMeUp is the calculator I use. It’s amazing, and my favourite created so far.
For me,the steeping clock does not begin until everything is present in a mix. I think this is true for most mixers in ELR.
To clear up, one can sample vape any mix at any time. You will get a truer taste if you wait at least 2 weeks or more. Yes, some mixes can be shake and vape.
I am with Brotherbob1 here about the steeping time clock…If you are only steeping your initial ingredients and flavor concentrates together BEFORE adding your final VG…then you are not getting a true steep…The new VG introduced is NOT getting time to blend with your concentrated mix. And IF you are vaping it immediately after adding your final VG, then perhaps this may, in part, explain the chemical taste.
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I understand.
I might ask an Aussie vendor friend of mine if they do that, before giving it to others to try/selling it without the final top-up. I hadn’t really thought about it like that, I suppose generally because you never really end up buying a full-ready-to-go bottle here, unless you’re not adding nicotine, and even then it’s made up completely before dispatch.
I’m not sure how, however, that the VG top up would be causing the chemical’ish smell though, seeing as it occurs beforehand.
Thanks a lot though. I’ve gained some wonderful insight.
It’s not the VG top up that would be causing the chemical taste…It is the lack of time given to the flavor concentrates, in order to properly blend with that VG… And not enough time for the volatiles in that mix to be removed…But this could only be part of the issue…I have TPA Black Cherry…It is a tough flavor to work with… I think @JoJo mentioned the difficult nature of Cherry flavors, in general…Also, she recommended a few flavors that are a bit more mild than the FA…and when I say mild, I mean that they are not as volatile in nature…which can be a good thing…
I see that you are using PG and VG…Curious what brand…These ingredients can also be a culprit…especially the PG…
Here is a method to test your ingredients… Vape your PG/VG WITHOUT flavor in the mix…See what that tastes like…If it vapes clean, then it is not either of those… If it vapes with chemical taste, then vape your VG by its self…and vape your PG by its self… and compare your results…This is a typical method to rule out problems by the process of elimination…I did it early on and found that my PG was the problem, in addition to other things… Not sure you are using nicotine or not, but you can add that to the mix and test, as well…
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