As some of you might remember, I started mixing my own juice a little over a year ago. My first 6 weeks were filled with disappointment. Couldn’t get that good manufactured juice taste. I got frustrated, needed to save money but still wanted to vape. I tried my unflavored base and liked it enough to get by with only that for around 9 or 10 months. Now I am back on the tasty juice band wagon and I have a couple of single flavor recipes I like… ( I know some of you are like really?? single Flavors?? but I am taking it slow and trying to learn the profiles of my flavors before I jump off the deepend again lol. Though I really want to mix up more complex mixes seriously bad) anyway back to the point of this. When I constantly vaped unflavored, I started mixing it with No PG and thinned it out with distilled water. The PG doesn’t really taste good without any flavors in it. So not because of an allergy, it was just the taste. since VG is sweet I could kind of get that in the unflavored juice. Well now I am mixing flavors again and I am only using V and DI water ( I don’t have much PG laying around so no choice and I buy my VG 5L at a time). My question is does PG really make a difference in bringing out flavors? Since I am flavoring again, should I buy PG and start to use it in my flavored liquids to help with carry or enhance the flavor?? I know some people don’t us PG because of allergies and they don’t really have a choice but to only use VG… Sorry for the long post but thanks for reading and all input is much appreciated!
I am sure this is a matter of personal taste but I mix all of my juices at Max VG. The only PG in them is from the flavoring and Nicotine. I use 50PG/50VG @ 50mg. My mixes usualy end up around 14%-18% PG.
I have made some of my ADV juices at 30PG/70VG and didnt really notice a change in flavor. I was using PG when I started mixing and ran out. After making a few recipes without it I stopped adding it.
your smart taking it slow , and a lot of SF are very good , i jumped into trying a lot of complex recipes of my own with a lot of them being no goos imo but when i went back to 4 to 6 flave recipes ive been putting out some good vape juice dont rush and dont go buying everything you read about good luck
Very wise advice because I really want to buy a bunch more flavors lol I am trying to go about this the right way this time so I don’t get super frustrated with bad batches… I at least have a couple of single flavors I like atm and I just recently added a bit of Sweetner to my unflavored and that’s good to vape for a change and in a pinch
As an example for you.
When I first started I made bust-a-nut with a 50/50 mix the original recipe is 20/80. I did not like it at all, you see I don’t like coffee flavour/mocha (don’t shoot me, I drink tea not coffee). I wondered what was wrong, asked around and go informed that it should not have a mocha flavour.
I suspected that the change in PG/VG ratio was the problem. So I made a mix reducing all the flavour percentages by 25%. Voila, it’s one of my ADV’s now.
So from that it showed me for those flavours and I suspect most flavours to move from 20%pg to 50% was a 25% increase in flavour roughly. I’m yet to make a original mix to see how close I am in intensity now. I suspect I’m close and will confirm soon, but I’m confident that this is accurate enough as a guide. Hope that helps give you a sense of change.
Yes, I have found PG absolutely makes a difference in flavor intensity… I started out by mixing tons of single flavor mixes (still do)…Experimented with 70/30 PG/VG (I always put my nomenclature in PG/VG order)…so I did 70/30 65/35 60/40 55/45 50/50 45/55 40/60 35/65 30/70 with FA Forest fruit… at a variety of flavor percentages, steep times and mix for RTA vaping in the .6 to 1.1 ohm range…I found that the more PG I had in the blend that the flavor was more intense HOWEVER…the sharpness or harshness is also increased, as well as lower vapor prioduction…So…I continued to play with a wide variety of single flavors and came up to a PG/VG ratio that gives me the boldness of flavor, along with smoothness of vape and vapor production, which also contributes to mouthfeel…Many mixers here use a 30/70 PG/VG ratio in their recipes…so I also mix some of these recipes at these ratios… It all boils down to personal preference and I typically mix at 40/60, and also venture into 30/70 mixes as some recipes flavor profiles are determined by the increased amount of VG… I am experimenting now with a lot of 30/70 single flavor mixes and am slowly increasing my flavor percentages to get to the boldness of flavor in a higher VG mix…which also dictates steeping times , as for me, I find more VG tends to require a bit longer steep times…but then again, there are still a host of other variables that go into my personal preferences…Long story-short: Experiment and test and vape, and Experiment, test and vape…and get to know some cool people here to learn…A big benefit that I found in all this tedious exercise was that it took me farther away from the rituals and habits of smoking the cigarettes and helped remove the compulsion to smoke…and gave me a whole new set of rituals to play with…
@Volition that sounds like a Good thing to test out I appreciate Your insight… @Flavor_Alchemist wow Very detailed response your giving me way to much to test out lol this is going to take me a long time to get at the level I want to be at lol thanks much for the info and yes I plan to make lots of friends here on ELR
I wonder if it’s because you used TPA Bavarian Cream instead of Flavor West. I also get an almost-coffee taste from TPA Bav Cream. I don’t mind that in a bakery vape, but it’s made me avoid fruit-recipes that use it.
Excellent point right there. Smoking has a strong habitual aspect to it, changing (and replacing) those habits is key to getting off. From the people I’ve watched myself (<10 ) vaping worked best when they got into some kind of DIY, either coils or juice.