I'm going to stop using PG and replace it with water

General The Pub
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So I’ve had a dig around /r/deeper_DIY the last few days and apart from some guy called adabada who calls himself a profiteer and acts like he’s protecting the holy grail itself the way he embellishes the gravity of the secret flavours he appears to truly believe are illuminati-grade awesome, I found a few posts from uh, normal people talking about adding Distilled Water as a flavour additive/carrier which got me thinking…

The primary reason I add PG is to thin the glycerine to a more tank friendly liquid and I really don’t like the taste or so called ‘throat hit’ it adds to juice: that throat hit effectively equates to dry irritation and not much more.

PG does dissolve and carry flavours better than VG, but I’m quite certain Distilled Water would also carry flavour well.

So I’ve already decided the next batch of liquids I mix I’m going to disregard the PG completely (except the PG ther flavours are already in) and mix only VG/DWater.

Not only will that solve my having to order PG online since DWater sold at every department store and supermarkets, it’ll mean that the throat hit I get from my mixes will be from the nicotine only, which will be good I think.

And course if water carries the flavours faster than PG (which makes sense simply because it’s so much lighter and thinner than PG) then flavour should only be improved.

Thinner carrier → Faster wicking → Faster to coil

The only reason I could see to use PG instead of water is if I’m creating a mix that would benefit from the dry, harsh and bitter taste/vapor PG adds, so I guess tobacco flavours could still use it, but I mainly go for dessert and bakery flavours so why would I want dry, harsh and bitter when all I need is glycerine to be less viscous?

Probably only take 5% water to thin VG too and I’ll get sweet/dessert/bakery mixed that’re smooth as silk.

Just another random thought, but it’s also one less DIY ingredient to worry about once the bans all come into effect.

On top of that: regardless how safe PG might purportedly be for vaping, water would have to be safer than Polythene Glycol and would only need to be used at a fraction of the amount for thinning VG.

Makes sense to me…

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I’d like to know how that works out. Keep us updated.

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Never done it so I’m ignorant. My only thought on this is what effect the DW would have in terms of the life of your coils. Would it promote rust? Combined with sweeteners would it murder the coils?

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I use dw with no pg outside of 250mg pg in the salts in my nic base ( mixed at 9mg). Wicks beautifully, no adverse reaction to ss coil or any wick. It does not carry flavor as well as pg but with a bit of tweaking to flavor % there isn’t any noticeable difference. Higher vg/dw mixes are better with a longer steep in my experience. But then I’m usually in favor of longer steeps.

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That’s a point actually: I’d not even considered rust, though living 3,000ft above sea level on a mountain top rust takes longer to get into things in general so I don’t see the effects of rust on other metal much generally.

That’d be an awful taste in an RDA too…

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There’s our answer - probably the VG coating over everything helps protect the stainless steel from said rust getting hold - it is pretty thick and much more glycerine than water in the mix.

Plus that Distilled Water contains nothing so without salt …

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Research pfft.

I’m more a shove my head in and hope nothing bad happens kinda guy: research is for people with a far greater attention span than me.

Consistency of flavour is too :smirk:

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Why do people prefer that?

Saline certainly sounds like a rust generator now @TorturedZen has mentioned rust.

Saline is alkaline… do they use it to raise the pH and increase throat hit?

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That’s one of the most unintelligent comments I’ve yet to see here. If you aren’t on-board with doing research that’s your decision. But please do not post your unproven ideas publicly. There are people who might read this and will easily latch on to your kind of thought process which, in turn, propagates ideas that aren’t necessarily compatible with DIY.

Do your experiments privately. If you hit on something worthwhile THEN share it!

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VERY dramatic reply there!

Suspiciously over-dramatized for the idea being discussed.

Way out of proportion even.

Took a while to output too and I’m wondering whether you haven’t taken the crown for unintelligent thinking here: all hail the king :slight_smile:

Given my original statement was I’d be adding water to replace PG in my mixes, I am kinda wondering how anyone would cause any harm to themselves whatsoever even if they did take what you’ve snorted to be an idea incompatible with DIY and heavily implied an unsafe practice and use it?

Please do elaborate: how water would cause the god of bad shit to visit a vaper who tried it?

Yeah, I expect that’ll keep you busy backspacing weak comebacks away for a while…

Long enough for me to do grocery shopping anyway. :smirk:

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Don’t be a dick. We have enough on the recipe side. :rage:

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I was busy machining but I’ll be glad to respond in very short time. Meanwhile how about a simple question: If water could be used as you have "concluded, why is it that all the professionals haven’t just eliminated PG usage?

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Translation:

Don’t we all hey? :slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t know.

Throat hit? Shelf life? Costs them less than water in the quantities they buy or its faster and cheaper to manufacturer PG? Always been done that way?

These are corporations you’re talking about here: their motivation is maximum profit and their reasoning for doing things is almost always convoluted and opaque.

So money is why ultimately, but knowing why they use one ingredient over another is something we can only assume to know.

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As I said
Don’t be a dick. By modifying my quote it appears you’re also an immature one at that! Your membership here is only a few weeks old. Not good starting off on the wrong foot pal

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Right, you don’t know which is what TZ was attempting to get across to you. Everyone here believes that people should do it their way. Experimentation can be very valuable when shared but for the less experienced can lead to a lot of frustration and confusion. That can lead people back to smoking.

Instead of attacking people personally and making revelations about how you have discovered that PG can be eliminated and replaced with DW, maybe you can do a little research and testing? Perhaps you could ask if others have attempted this. Every experienced mixer here knows you can add a little DW or saline (DW) or alcohol which is water soluble. @Letitia gave you a hint:

I can tell you the reason for this, backed by science, but before I do lets back up.

You begin with attacking and disparaging A.B. DADA who is not here to defend himself. He likely wouldn’t anyway. However, I am very familiar with what he attempted to bring to the mixing communities. His usage of homogenizing equipment and overall knowledge of mixing and dispersal technology predates mine. I haven’t heard his name for years but know that he was highly knowledgeable and respected. Dada was also one, along with professional chemists/flavorists, that sought to find a way to not use PG. Dada claimed he was allergic. Maybe.

To understand why PG is almost universally used is for its properties as a solvent. While it does reduce viscosity, thickness has very little to do with how chemicals will dissolve and bond to each other. Many won’t without additives.

The flavor concentrates we use are composed of 3 basic things: flavorants or flavor materials, solvents, and water. Flavor materials are generally not water soluble so are dissolved in solvents and water thereby making them a stable solution.

So what Letitia said was correct, by adding water it is diluting the concentrate which also takes extra time to mix and bond with the final mix. The chemists know the correct proportions. So yes a little DW will thin the VG but It does not do what you have asserted. Maybe someone will find a suitable replacement for PG, but it will not be DW.

Flavor materials must be made water soluble by dissolving them which is what solvents do.

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It was no revelation: just a statement of what I plan to try, and totally out of frame I get this response…

Simultaneously as wrong as it was a condescending attack, I simply highlighted how wrong it was with equal snark.

You can step back and do the “Oh he didn’t mean it about THIS post specifically…” but THIS is the specific post he’s attacking and saying he was talking generally about my posting ideas I haven’t even posted is a pretty lame response to what began as an attack on someone’s intelligence that made him look half as intelligent as a result.

Telling anybody they’re an idiot for something they possibly/maybe/might do or say at some point in the future - that’s hardly the expression of a superior mind.

Now you’re scrambling to turn it into a scientific debate, like science can defend bad manners and rudeness, which is where this started.

The disagreement is about manners not the science of the idea in the first post.

As an aside: how many people who use the forums are scientists, and do you think only scientists should be allowed to post an idea while the rest of us all watch gasping in awe?

What do you suppose the active userbase would look like if we all had to be scientists in order to post?

We don’t even require science to know the answer to that.

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Might to read:

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Yes I remember the thread. Alcohol is a solvent used in lots of concentrates because that’s what works best in some. 100 proof is half water. Both will thin VG. Water is a dilutant. Alc is a solvent.

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Looks like a cool way of doing it… still reading.

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