Mixing of mixes, could this be the secret trick?

E-liquids Beginners
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this happened to me while playing with couple recipes so wanted to get your views. is this even a thing? could it be the secret trick why some ready made juice are hard to clone?

here’s what i did, sometime ago i mixed a recipe of vanilla custard, it’s been steeping for a month. so it’s good to go. then i had another Strawberry/BB yogurt mix in a different bottle - fresh mix. i didn’t like the custard that much and thought it needs tweaking - so while tweaking it, i got a clean bottle, mixed half VC with half SB/BB/Yog, shake, filled a tank and vaped and an immediate Wow!

OK, so trying to recreate that same (end product) taste by scaling down the flavors from both recipes to produce a single recipe won’t possibly be the same, as i tried this before. it will always be a little off. so it got me thinking, could this “mixing of mixes” be a technique that others are using out there?

i’m not talking about creating bases or stones. i’m talking about fully “cooked” mixes that you then take and mix together at various ratios (like 1 of this to 3 of that) - given that there are molecular interactions and changes with steeping, it made sense to me that the results can be different than simply mixing the base ingredients together at the same time

this is like
A + B = C
D + E = F

then C + F = X (where X is not equal to A + B + D + E, because C and F each changed into different “compounds” - especially in presence of an active ingredients like nic and molecular-level chem interactions)

or maybe this is like cooking, where in some recipes, you need to prepare and cook some ingredients first before mixing them together, because some ingredients need “different/separate” processing and prep before they are “ready” for the final mix.

hey, or i may just be over-thinking this…

thought to check what you guys think?

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That’s my normal mixing method. I just called it ‘tank mixing’. I only vape tobaccos, so I’m not sure how it would play out with other types of flavors.

I have 10 or so, favorite, single tobacco flavor, mixes. They are all 60/40 vg/pg, all have .4 nic. They are ready to go in 30 ml bottles. I can & sometimes do vape one of those by itself.

I have maybe 15 or so of what I call ‘complimentary flavors’ which might be flavors to add a touch of sweetness, like caramel, toasted marshmallow, sweet coconut, Bavarian cream, black honey, etc. Some of the complimentary flavors are also other tobaccos that I like, but prefer them as complimentary rather than something I would vape by itself. All the complimentary flavors are also 60/40 & .4 nic, just like the 10 main tobaccos. Ready to go.

When I fill a tank, I usually just browse what I have before me, and pick a ‘main’ tobacco (sometimes 2) and put X amount of each in the tank. Then I look over the complimentary flavors and decide which of those I wish to add to the tank.

My recipes may look like:
Desert Ship 3
Highway 1.5
Bav Cream .25
Gold Ducat .25

The numbers may be grams, if I set the tank on a scale and zero it out, or it may be eyedroppers. It doesn’t really matter, as long as the ratio is somewhat maintained. I just add what sounds appealing at that moment. It works damn well for me.

I will say, it’s not as big of an ‘experiment’ as it sounds. I’m very familiar with my tobaccos & flavors. I only have maybe 25 total. I haven’t tried a commercial juice in a year & a half (a month after I started vaping), so I’m not trying to chase or clone anything.

I do have half a dozen or so mixes that I have that are more conventionally mixed, with all ingredients combined at the same time and allowed to steep, etc…so not ‘all’ my stuff is winging it.

I will add, when you tank mix, if you have the time, mix it the evening before, and let the tank sit overnight. I’ve found that gives the flavors a chance to meld a little. @MaxUT shared that tip with me a while ago, and it really does improve the outcome a bit. When I can, I try and mix my next day’s work tank, the evening before, so I can pop in a fresh battery, screw on the tank, & go.

My methods certainly aren’t for everyone, but they work well for me.

Have fun tank mixing!

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I also tank mix all the time… Strawberry and Peach (RF super concentrate single flavor testers at the moment) and might add a couple variations of Strawberry Apple recipes I’m testing out also, in one tank. My ADV tank I quite often will mix BaN and Moon Butter, sometimes another “Cream” type recipe, then back to BaN.
I have “made” bottles (30ml) of some mixes, namely BaN and Moon Butter at a specific ratio, but normally just do it on the fly for variation.

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I do this with almost all of my 20ml testers. Once they get under 15ml in their glass droppers I will combine 2 into a 30ml plastic dripper bottle to use in a RTA/RDA. I will be doing the same thing with all my RF single flavor testers. It allows me to free up the glass bottles for new testers faster and the results are generally quite nice vapes.

Currently vaping a bottle that started life as 4 different recipes: Sugar Bear, Moon Sugar, Lucky Shot x Lotta Latte, and Monkey Snack.

This calc by @CosmicTruth might help - http://www.e-liquid-scripts.com/cosmiccalc

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I just reworked the “recipe blender” which is used to combine 2 recipes by weight to output the new percents for a new recipe. The change I made was to remove the specific gravity input cells as they did not have an effect on the final recipe percents.
Hope someone finds it useful here is the link

The proportional flavor adjuster has now been added to ELR just click the blue wrench :slight_smile:

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@jj66 You should read this message/thread Mixing of mixes, could this be the secret trick?

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Great post! I’ll bet many people have done this from time to time, even by accident.

I have been ‘mixing mixes’ on my RDA for probably two years, on and off. I just drip ejuice A on coil A, then ejuice B on coil B, and WALAA !! YummmerCITY!

I’ve come up with new mixes this way too, yup yup.

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So I am wondering if anyone has seen the recipe blender page on my calculator, if it is useful, or if I should abandon the ideas, take it down and just use my local spreadsheets.
Should I make a tutorial? are the instructions enough?
Can anyone give a little input?
I have been using the calculations about 2 times weekly but have no idea if anyone else is actually using them.

Good thread BTW @TheFlavorSeeker

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thanks everyone for sharing the experiences

scaling down recipes in basic terms is easy, the math can be worked out (and can get as complex as it gets, but the fundamentals are same, and when it gets tricky, we can always use the wonderful converter from @CosmicTruth :slight_smile: ) - let’s assume 2 recipes with 10% flavor each

  1. recipe 1: flavor A 4% , flavor B 6%
  2. recipe 2: flavor D 5%, flavor E 5%
  3. mixing both 50/50 assuming both are same PG/VG and nic ratios, would then be (as if) we used half of the above percentages … so flavor A would be 2%, B 3% and D & E each 2.5%

resulting new mix would still have total flavor of 10%

now the question really is, will the flavor of that resulting mix from step 3 be the same compared to a completely fresh mix, you know, when you start with an empty bottle, mix these same flavors using the new (scaled down) percentages then add PG/VG, nic and steep as usual?

is this “mixing of mixes”, a technique that can be used to produce new (or enhanced) flavor mixes. (add time dimension and we have a lot to play with, example, let recipe 1 steep for a month, but recipe 2 only 3 days then mix)… just a thought.

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I think yes.
I have put 2 mixes in a tank and observed the ratios like 1/3 of recipe 1, and 2/3 of recipe 2, then used the calculator to calculate a new recipe, mixed it up, and came up with the flavor that I had winged in the tank.
JMO

and I have done it with like 1 gram of recipe1, and 2 grams of recipe2 , it seems to work for me at any ratio.

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Link please!

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it’s the 3rd tab

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I have been doing that for years and it does make a difference being fresh vs steeped.

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Thank you :slight_smile:

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When I switch from Bust-a-Nut to DaMomma’s Morning Kicker, without changing the wick, there comes a moment when the sky gets closer … that “mix” is insanely tasteful. I do the same when I think a thick vanilla mix can use some berry.

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1: come up with the approximate ratio in your tank that tastes best. ie 2 parts recipe1 : 3 parts recipe 2
2: experiment by weight to find how many grams of each recipe work right
3: enter the recipes and the weights of each onto my calculator, remember if one ingredient is in both recipes enter it on the same line.
4. enter the result percents into ELR and save it as a new recipe.
5,6,7,8: mix, steep, vape and enjoy :slight_smile:

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Im sure it makes a tiny difference being steeped vs new recipe. But for coming up with a new unique recipe I think it can be beneficial to calculate it and mix it from scratch. I’m thinking the interaction of steeping separate and combined may be negligible.

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that’s exactly what i’m wondering about. it’s a mystery to me, given limited chemistry know how, if a Strawberry Custard (steeped) when added to a mix of tropical fruit (freshly mixed) will produce the same results compared to if we add them all together at the same time then shake and steep - maybe the custard molecules tend (for some reason) to bond to one of the tropical fruits first :slight_smile: - then the new “flavor” starts to look around.
in all cases, i started preparing steeped “Custard” with nic and everything, then use it to experiment with other steeped recipes… gives a new meaning to "layering"
it’s all fun at the end !

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I do not use this method to create new recipes but rather use different things as add ons to other recipe types. I usually do this for just making a mix different from time to time. One example, I have an Icing recipe that I normally keep steeped and sometimes when I am vaping a cake or bakery type recipe I will fill my tank two thirds with say a cupcake type then one third with my Icing and without shaking I vape and will get cupcake on one draw and icing on another. It’s a really good way to just have something different and although this method is not intended to create new liquids, it very well could be a secret trick to any recipe new or old.

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Dont try it with coffee or cactus.

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