I honestly don’t find mixing as enjoyable as others do it seems and I can only mix on the weekends due to my work schedule.I tend to try and make mix time a marathon of sorts by making about 6-10 mixes at one time and the vast majority are 120ml of ones I know that are good.
I would love to try one of the vortex mixers that are gaining in popularity but waiting 45-60 minutes before I can do another flavor simply will not work for me due to the time needed.10 mixes at 45 minutes stir time for each just eats up too much of my time.Perhaps if and when I am down to only three or four mixes I will give it a chance.
I use a 6 liter USC and set the heater to 45 degree’s Celsius and drop them all in the water until I get all 6-10 mixed.Then I turn the cleaner function on for 15-20 minutes and call it a day.
I do get alittle tired. But not really. But I’ve only been doing it since October of last year and I mix for myself most of the time.
I do get tired of planning recipies. I spend hours researching and writing before I mix. But my end results are great. I haven’t had to dump a bad recpie in a very long time.
All in all. I find it more fun mixing with new recpies. I always have new ones to make. When I mix I normally have half of them that are my recpies I love but are being tweaked slightly (I call those touch ups). The other half is always new with new combinations and new primary flavors. That way, when it’s time to pick out a vape or two I always have something new to be excited about. The excitement of something new is what always calls me back to mixing every two weeks.
I use fishing tackle utility boxes. You know, the ones where you can set it up by adding the insert separators. If you are using 30ml flavor bottles you should be able to put numerous flavors in just one box. You can stack then, mount on a wall (I did this), mark the them fruits, creams, etc. Might help you a bit and use about the same amount of space you use now…
Sounds a bit like me though I mix for a shop. Every Thursday I mix on average at least 8 different mixes. That’s why the flavor choosing and printing starts to get tedious. For ease I blend 100 ml batches. Something you probably don’t do is bottle the juice in 6 15ml bottles, or 3 30ml glass bottles depending on the mix. Max VG and 60/40 are the usual blends. It is no longer a joy for me. I love creating recipes but then the fun stops when I blend it in mass quantities…
@ringling
Nice set up! My goodness you’re organized. Ever watch Mark Sosin’s “Saltwater Journal”? The ultimate organized fishing tackle box guy.
Yep…
That’s me. I love playing around with the ELR calculator based on my stash, but then . . . oh, you mean I have to actually mix this stuff? Once I get all my stuff out, I can mix a bottle in no time, but Lord, digging through all that to get ready.
Actually, no. Haven’t been into fishing since I was a teenager. I got the idea to use these type boxes because I used to be in the Sterling Silver Charms business. I would use these to display the charms. I had a bunch of them just laying around once I decided to get out of the jewelry business and found the perfect use for them. Though organized, it is still a bitch getting the flavors I need all together and then carrying them to where I blend which is in my kitchen…
I don’t mind mixing. But…and this is more of a caveat than anything else…
is that I have SO MUCH JUICE to vape, I really don’t see a need to mix in the foreseeable future. I love the custards, and I love them even more when they are well steeped. So I mix 500 ml or a liter of what I like at a time. I don’t need juice, and I’m not going to mix just for the sake of mixing. If I see a recipe that really piques my interest, I may mix a 15 ml test bottle…or being a beta tester for RF, I mix the betas up to test…
I’m not that creative, I have created a few decent mixes, but for my palate, I have more that where created by others than I have created myself and I have plenty to vape on. I don’t sell a lot of juice, but I do sell to a few people, so I don’t even have to mix a lot for them.
I think in my case, need dictates my mixing habits more than anything else.
@ringling
My organization problem is compounded by the fact that I’ve also got tins of snuff, pouches of pipe tobacco, etc., also lying around, which I use regularly. My desk looks like a medical supply house for the nicotine-addicted. (I’m not anti-tobacco; I just think that cigarettes are surely the absolute worst means of consuming it. I go through phases. I even have a few cigarettes now and then if I feel like it, just as a reminder that I don’t regularly smoke cigarettes because I usually don’t want to, not because I can’t, if that makes any sense. For me, total deprivation creates obsession, even if it’s deprivation of something I don’t much care for in the first place. Maybe I’m weird, but for me vaping can never completely replace the use of actual tobacco. There’s something in that stuff . . . .)
Make somebody else’s recipe 
I’ve made a few flavour bases from a couple of recipes that I really like, so when I’m in a slump and don’t want to pull out various bottles, I only have to dig out one and add it to my base. My enthusiasm for mixing goes up and down, just like with everything else I do. Sometimes I read nonstop and then I don’t at all. So when I’m in mixing mode and I know I like the recipe, I make a base.[quote=“ringling, post:8, topic:64784”]
mark the them fruits, creams, etc.
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I’ve done that. I’ve got a cool box that is just full of tobacco flavours, numbers on the top so I can find them quick. I’ve got a section for fruit, creams and custards, drinks and miscellaneous, all numbered. I’ve got a list of all my flavours in alphabetical order and the corresponding number in front of it.
While mixing fatigue doesn’t come to me that often…I do get it as well. That’s when I turn to my friend’s recipes I have hearted on my board as favorites I make them and it gets me through my mixing block. I also surf through the web looking at real food recipes the cook or the DIY’er in me gets inspired one way or another 
As far as being organized this helps abundantly as it cuts down the time and then mixing by weight is in my mind the only way to mix now that it’s been about 8 months since I switched no clean up worked for me.
I get both mixing and flavor fatigue. I forgive myself for it because I am an artist by trade and you do go through dry spells. Mixing has a “learning” period (where you make many mistakes but learn a lot) and then a “honeymoon period” (where you start having a lot of success and are well satiated with your results) and then the maintenance period where you know you have become good at but want to look for new flavor fun.
I look at mixing like a good marriage - even the best ones require work, discipline and weekend out of town occasionally to keep things interesting
Truer words were never spoken Maureenie ! I am certainly in the maintenance stage and have found myself going back to old mixes and realizing I have changed my style quite a bit from when I first started mixing !
But nonetheless I still put in effort for fun easy mixes ! Time away does make the heart fonder.
Organization and making it as easy as you can is the key.
For myself, I must have the flavors so I can sit and reach them all. I’m also bent on keeping them upright.
I have 3 plastic containers. Two of them contain my TPA flavorings and one contains all other brands.
They are sorted first by type and then in a-z order. I have categories.
A- Additives, AS- Additives Sweeteners, AM- Menthol, B- Bakery, C- Coffee, CH- Chocolate, D- Dairy, DV- Dairy Vanilla, F- Flavors, J- Juice, L- Liqueur, N- Nut, and T- Tobacco.
It all makes sense to me, what flavors would go in each category. I can immediately go "okay Rootbeer is in F- Flavors and then move alphabetically to the 'R’s.
Raspberry would be in J- Juice then before ‘S’ flavors.
Anything with ‘vanilla’ in it’s name is in the DV - Dairy Vanilla area.
I have a Microsoft Word document I call “E-Juice Inventory” that lists all of my flavors in this order. I use it while I’m mixing to sometimes check if I have a flavor. I also contains the amounts of flavor I bought, like for example Brown Sugar below listed as shown means you use 2 to 20% and I’ve bought a 60ml and a 4ml bottle of it. I got the percentages from lists on ELR.
F- Brown Sugar [2-20%] by TPA 60ml +4ML
I’ll gladly share this document if anyone wants it. You can add or delete flavors to suit your inventory. I tried to upload it, but it must be a JPG document. If someone can convert it, let me know.
I experience mixing fatigue as well. I recently have started to batch base flavours and then add it to my nic and VG base in to make 100 ml amounts. I use blunt tip and syringe method don’t even want the hassle of batching by weight. It took two years to come up with three or so recipes that like well enough to replicate. Also I have moved way down in % of nicotine (from 26% to 3%) as my devices have changed over the last two years. It was once common for a 30ml batch to last six days, now I drip… and a 100 ml bottle just gets me though a week.
Snuff! I had a huge snuff collection (addiction) going for years… I am of the opinion, nothing delivers like a full measure of Tom’s Buck… I wish vaping gave me that same satisfaction.
Before I started mixing by weight, I thought it was going to be a hassle, too. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth - it’s so much easier, more accurate, and clean-up is a breeze. I can’t believe I waited so long to try it. (You do need a scale that reads to 1/100 of a gram; this is the one I have: http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Scales-LB-501-Digital/dp/B005UGBG20?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00)
I don’t bother with syringes anymore (again, reducing clean-up), just disposable pipettes, which I got on Amazon, 100 of them for 3 bucks. With big bottles of PG and VG, I don’t use a syringe or a pipette; I just screw off the cap and screw on an appropriately sized “ketchup bottle” type cap, with the adjustable nozzle. This is especially great with VG, which I hate drawing up in a syringe or pipette; it’s like drawing up molasses. The great thing about mixing by weight is you don’t have to worry about drawing up precise amounts of anything; just add it to your mix, and the scale will tell you when it’s enough. When I mix, clean-up is limited to cleaning: 1) a couple of “ketchup bottle” caps, one for PG and one for VG, 2) a small plastic funnel, and 3) a plastic mixing beaker. I don’t even bother trying to clean those dirt-cheap pipettes; once I use one, it goes in the trash. At three cents each, I’m not worried about it.
I still like my snuff. It delivers the full tobacco experience, and not just nicotine.
You can purchase e-liquid that contains whole tobacco alkaloids, and not just isolated nicotine, but I haven’t tried it, so I can’t say how effective it is:
http://www.aromaejuice.com/Whole-Tobacco-Alkaloid-WTA-Eliquids_c33.htm
I felt similarly.
I just decided to make time, and to make enough, to plan ahead.
Maybe it was motivation for me.
Now im stocked up with new juices, steeping, only now im thinking “isnt that enough juice?”
I think my mixing fatigue happens more from mixing larger quantities, what I mean is, I have a few 120ml mixed and steeping, and a few 50/60ml batches mixed and steeping, and a dozen or so 30ml… along with a good dozen 10/15mls and I want to mix something else, but feel I just have too much juice already, but a good 40 or 50 flavors I haven’t even got to play with. It just feels like I’m overwhelmed with options to play with but can’t because I’m already sitting on more juice than I can realistically vape already. I feel like a cook that has a fully stocked kitchen, with a ton of Mise en place and the restaurant is at the end of a dirt road in the boondocks.