We bottle immediately after mixing to allow them to condition in the bottles. They are black frosted bottles.
Glass or plastic? And caps?
Glass 30ml bottles with standard drippers.
Just as a control test, try using polycone caps on a few bottles for comparison. Iāve had some flavors fall flat after a few weeks using drippers to steep. Not saying itās your issue, but it is a cheap thing to test out.
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ā¦pretty sure boat paddleās just became a āTobacco related productā
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One other option we havenāt tried yet is adding 0.25% citric acid. It seems to be common practice in preserving E-Liquid flavors and prolonging shelf life.
The question is, will 0.25 citric acid throw the flavor off? We shall see, being that itās not a fruity flavor, but a custard.
Citric acid tastes like lemon Koolaid without the sugar might affect flavor. Also thatās of course like a 10% CA solution, so it may be fine. I buy at Walmart in the Canning sectionā¦ used for canning preservation (tomatoes). Itās also where I get my cases and cases of quart mason jars 
(joke!) In commercial quantities itās referred to as Sour Salt (5 lb bags)
Which brings to mind the pH of your final product. Citric acid and vinegar can work to lower/balance pH. Clear apple cider vinegar (at same low %) could be another test (not lemony).
Hi Aaron ,
This may sound a bit odd but it may be in the amounts used,
I know people in the catering game and it was explained to me the difference between domestic and commercial cooking and where alot of ppl come unstuck. EG, You cook a roast chicken. You use 6 spoons oils half teaspoon salt , 1 teaspoon soy, 1 pinch of rosemary Or whatever ,
But when you step up to cooking 10 you would assume you just multiple the ingredients by ten fold.
But thats not the right way , infact you would only use 20 spoon oil, 7 spoons soy and maybe 5 salt .
Thats not the exact equation but the reason is because some spices or ingredients are very pungent or rich in flavour so to increase by tenfold would have overpowered the tasteā¦
Maybe you added too much of ???
Anyway hope thats been of some help,. Maybe go talk to a chef or caterer coz its a food we are dealing with. .
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@The_rampant_vapist may have nailed it. The word āpungentā can translate to an ingredient that could overpower when multiplied by 125. In a smaller batch it might max out for that batch but have something in reserve ā¦unreacted. Using MTS Vape Wizard or TFA Smooth (triacetin)?
Look at any other non-flavor additives too, or sweeteners like Ethyl Maltol
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UPDATE:
Well hereās a little update. Tonight we decided to open up our entire stock. We have a batch of 12mg, 6mg, 3mg, and 0mg.
We decided to drip the 6mg and the creaminess is very very faint at this point (keep in mind this is a cream flavor).
After that we cleared our coils and dripped some 3mg. It was noticeably much more creamy than the 6mg but still way off.
After that we decided to drip the 0mg which was the creamiest and tasted closest to what the intended recipe represents. Although the 0mg still had some faded flavor and wasnāt completely on point, the flavor with the nic was diminishing at a exponential rate.
We believe there are several factors at play here, but number one being the quality of our current nicotine. Hopefully the switch to NicSelect will help in this regard. Itās funny that a nicotine can have that much of an impact on flavor. Again, we have always used this supplier and never had any problems in the past, and it never affected flavor, until we switched to their 100mg in the plastic bottles. Before that we always ordered in the amber glass bottles but same supplier but was much more expensive.
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Could try looking into accuracy of measurement for large quantities. Fading suggests failure to reach mix percentage requirement.
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Yes Sir and that is why I mentioned using a scale. Measuring by volume even in syringes is not accurate at all but measuring by weight never lies as long as your scale is accurate.
@AaronR mentioned they used a 60ml syringe and graduated cylinders but has never mentioned a scale.
As you mentioned @Brotherbob1 flavor fading leads to low percentage of flavoring in the mix and commonly caused by measuring by volume not weight.
When he posted the 0mg batch also had reduced flavor it once again leads me to believe there are measuring issues.
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Do they make an over 1,000mg mg scale?
I am sure they are out there but even if they wanted to get off cheap measuring several smaller amounts to equal a larger amount beyond your scales ability to do would be far better than trying to be consistent with measuring by volume.
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Both of these are fairly cheap the first link is what I use and both come with calibration weights. Depends rather .01g accuracy is important.
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Ok, I wanna make a suggestion. Are you starting with a flavor base? As in, are you premixing all of your flavors beforehand and just adding the flavor as a percentage to the rest of the ingredients? May help in getting your accuracy and definitely will assist in steeping times, translating to less time in which to figure your problems out.
And:
Having a flavor base, you can make slight adjustments, like upping your overall percentage in hopes of lengthening your shelf life. I am, by no means, an expert mixologist, but I pay attention, and Iāve noticed one of our expert mixologists (Darthvapor) making some changes in his overall percentages with the goal of extending shelf life of his flavor profiles. May be an element worth looking into. Of course, in addition to the other ideas mentioned before me.
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These are all some great suggestions,
The last process we used was as follows.
Step 1
Measure all flavors by syringe and add them to a empty sanitized gallon jug.
Step 2
Measure PG by graduated cylinder and add to flavor mixture.
Step 3
Measure VG by graduated cylinder and add to mixture. I think this may be where part of the problem lies. 1000mL graduated cylinder has a plus minus range of 10mL. So adding too much VG would definitely cause a flavor loss as well as explaining why our batch yielded around 5 extra 30mL bottles than calculated.
Step 4
Measure the nicotine by graduated cylinder and add to mix.
Step 5
Cap and shake for about 20 minutes until well blended.
Step 6
Fit 1 OZ bottle pump and begin filling 30mL bottles
Step 7
Cap and store away.
The weird thing is that the flavor was dead on for the first 2 weeks. The flavoring was not light. Then it started diminishing.
We will definitely do the next batch by weight.
The real concern I would guess. Since you had the correct flavoring/flavor profile at the beginning and it dropped considerably to almost nothing is either dirty equipment or its a bad flavor/nic/oh/vg.
Something as simple as your 30ml bottles. Where they clean? Did you check to see if they were clean if you were using product that was supposed to be cleaned by the manufacturer prior to mixing? Did you randomly sample/test 5% of the bottles recieved.
Same with the nic. Did you test it. If it was a full bottle was it really mixed all way prior to adding it?
All the bottles and equipment ran through a sterilizing machine.
We triple checked our sterilization. Since we had already been through this 2 times prior, we were concerned that could have been a factor and made sure to rule that out.
Iām not 100% sure but I am almost certain this isnāt a contamination issue. There are no strange odors in the liquid. The flavoring has just died down quite a bit in such a short period of time. Also, we have tried lots of house juices here in the local area and they make them in less than clean environments right there in the store. We didnāt experience flavor loss with local house juices, or premium for that matter, even after several months.
One of the odd things I have noticed, is the left over flavoring bottle from Capella has developed a very strange strong chemical smell. Iāve always thought their quality control is on point, but I found this to be pretty strange.
At this point Iām thinking itās the VG/PG and definitely the Nic, and oddly enough and very unfortunate in this case, the Capella flavoring. The other flavorings used from different brands smells fine. It could be possible that the Capella flavoring was damaged due to heat during shipping. Just a wild guess, but it smelt fine when we were doing the batch run.
There is definitely something very odd going on here, and this has been the third time this has happened.
sorry to use an old adage, but its back to the drawing board:
buy new PG
buy new VG
buy new nic
buy new flavors
start overā¦start with small amounts first, work your way up.
iām sure i didnt hafta tell you this, iām sure you know.
but youve come to the right placeā¦we got your back, brother, i promise
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