New to DIY

Oh, and you mentioned you are using 100mg VG based nicotine. Always shake the chit out of the bottle of nicotine you are dispensing from before dispensing any nicotine. Otherwise it is said the nic can develop hot spots in the thicker VG.

Thank you @LordVapor for all the great advice and links. I came acrossed that hotspot claim in some of my research. What exactly is a hotspot in nicotine?

I just wanted to say you all have been great and very welcoming! I am so pumped to get started, at this point I wish I would have paid for overnight shipping on all my supplies!! Lol It going to be a long week of panicky checking the mailbox after work! :smiley:

I think the nicotine seperates from the VG and settles to the bottom. But I am not 100% on that. But a hot spot would be pouring your nicotine into a mix and instead of getting a mixture of nicotine with vg, you get a pool of nicotine which would drastically raise the nic level of your recipe. So any time I pour my nic I shake it up really good.

@LordVapor thanks for all the great advice. I have a few recipes saved on here to try which is why I order some of the extra flavors but if u have any suggestions for good recipes with the flavors I currently have(listed in the above post) let me know. Thanks

Without having any creams, just at first glance you don’t have many options there. You could make a Strawberry Cheesecake, but I don’t mix TFA strawberry without throwing in some of Capella’s Sweet Strawberry. And I actually use Strawberry (Ripe) (TFA) instead of the regular strawberry, which I have noticed others mix this way as well.

Flavor pairing is important. And it’s just a matter of personal taste. But if I only had those flavors I would be looking to buy some creams, a couple more Strawberry flavors like Strawberry (FA) and Sweet Strawberry (CAP) and Strawberry (Ripe) (TFA) to blend with your strawberry, and I would buy some custard flavorings. A few other fruits like pear, banana, and apple would be nice as well. The coconut you have to me needs a sweet cream or something similar to mix with it to pair with your fruit flavors. Coconut and peach doesn’t seem like a good combination. But coconut, sweet cream, and peach would be.

The cinnamon and red hots don’t really go with anything in that list either. The watermelon candy flavor stands alone. As does the Lemon Sicily.

Again, these are all my personal tastes. Maybe others can chime in and prove me wrong. There is surely some combination there that will produce a decent vape. But I just think you need a dozen or so more flavors to really start getting some recipes going.

In the meantime, I would suggest you take some of the flavors you have and maybe make a few small (like 10ml) single flavor test liquids to get an idea of how each flavor tastes by themselves after a bit of steeping. Because all flavors will change with time. You are just starting out. Plan on it taking a month before you really get a rotation of vapable liquid going. If you go at this too fast you may be left frustrated.

What’s up with Gramma? She bein’ mean to Grampa again? :smiley:
Just teasin man! I know what you mean :wink:

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I’m sure there’s a reason for that. I’ve been pleading that us vets step in and stop this cycle and get these noobs onto some flavors that they will use later on down the road.

Some of these vendor starter packs are BS. Taking advantage and off loading flavors that sound good to a noob.

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@Pro_Vapes wondering why you don’t like the flavor vendors you have list? I have noticed that a majority of the recipes on this site are excatly those flavors. Just like to hear your thoughts on what vendors produce the best flavors in your opinion. Thanks for weighing in by the way, any advice I can get before I start mixing will help!

I don’t believe it’s the flavors in question but the vendors of the specific flavor. CAP, FW, FA, etc all make a watermelon (example, I’m not sure they all make a watermelon), but each of those may not taste good or may not be what “most” people think watermelon tastes like. Looking on the flavor listing on this site you can sort by … let’s say watermelon and see what most people use for mixing with. In this example over 6000 recipes with watermelon from TPA, with many starter kits they may put in the watermelon from FW that users used less than 200 times in recipes, hense a company may wish to rid itself from that watermelon via starter kits so they can then get the other watermelon… without losing funds to purchase it outright.

It’s not that. I’m very hapy with the flavors I have. It bothers me what noobs and I went through on the way to acquiring flavors that work together.

I learn from members here that are more senior than me. I feel the noobs first contact should be with the forum… instead of a vendor. I’m compiling a list of multiple vendor flavors that are more useful than what the vendors offer in these kits. I was hoping the community saw the need to be proactive, instead of reactive. This is just a rough draft because I haven’t had any input on this list. I think it offers more than what vendors are willing to tell a noob. All noobs need guidance and I feel we are responsible to help before too many mistakes are made.

A very rough draft… A very rough draft… A very rough draft…

TPA GOOD FLAVAORS
Strawberry Ripe 6 to 8%
Blueberry Extra 7 - 10%
Dragon Fruit 7 - 10%
Ripe Banana
Coconut Extra
Blueberry Wild
Absinthe
Brown Sugar
Caramel (Original)
Dulce de Leche
Graham Cracker (Clear)
Marshmallow
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Vanilla Swirl
Belgium Waffle

Capella Good Flavors
Fruits
Yellow Peach 4 - 7%
Sweet Strawberry 5 - 8%
Sweet Tangerine 4 - 7%
Butter Cream
Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts
Glazed Doughnuts
Vanilla Custard V1
Sweet Cream
Gingerbread
NY Cheesecake
Sweet Cream
Graham Cracker

Flavor West GOOD FLAVAORS
Acai Berry
Cake Yellow
Butterscotch
Salted Caramel

FLAVOURART GOOD FLAVAORS
Apricot
Bilberry
Forest fruit
Fuji Apple
Lemon Sicily
Lime Tahity
Mango
Pear
White Peach
Strawberry Red Touch
Almond
Anise
Vanilla Bourbon
Brandy
Catalan Cream
Chocolate
Cookie
Cream Fresh
Custard
Honey
Maple Syrup
Meringue
Nut Mix
Oak Wood
Peppermint
Vienna Cream
Walnut
Hazelnut

Flavorah GOOD FLAVAORS
Blueberry
Banana
Strawberry
Pink Guava (Grapefruit)
Wild Melon
Boysenberry
Coconut
Lime
Watermelon
Butterscotch
Caramel
Cinnamon Crunch
Cantalope
Cream
Lemonade
Milk & Honey
Peanut
Rich Cinnamon
Vanilla Custard
Yogurt

Inawera GOOD FLAVAORS
Cactus
Cherry
Coconut
Peach
Pear
Raspberry
Shish Strawberry
Cherries
Biscuit
Chocolate
Frost
Rum
Strawberry

Molinbury
Funky Pineapple

Hangsen
Pineapple

LorAnns
Banana Cream (Clear)
Cheesecake
Butter Rum
Cream Cheese Icing
English Toffee
Vanilla Butternut

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I like the idea, Pro Vapes. As, someone new to DIY this will be very helpful for me. For a noob, reading through the Flavor List to try and make sense of the myriad flavors and pairings available is a little like looking through the whole US tax code trying to find that one deduction you might’ve missed.

Would also be very cool if on the recipe site there was a beginners recipe book. Some suggested recipes that require few ingredients but allow exploration of flavor percentages and are pretty forgiving in terms of screwing up. Just a starter set picked by the regulars and recommended for those starting out. Success early on can easily breed the desire to explore.

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Maybe this will start a discussion. There are several here that know more about these flavors than I do and maybe we can save some noobs from what I went through on my journey into DIY.

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Agreed! But how do you make that happen?

I think this is great and I hope to see more of this. I consider myself a noob and do not have a great deal of experience with all the flavors yet. I made the same mistake many before me and after me have made and ordered all TPA flavors first solely in the interest of saving money. I have recently started ordering the flavors from the better manufactures.

I have not acquired the skill of flavor paring yet so most of what I do is pick 2 or 3 recipes I think I will like that others made. I will order the flavors for those and anything I already have and like that needs re-stocking.

I just got the Flavor Bible and have set a goal to come up with a few 2 to 4 flavor combinations that seem to work good together. I think as a noob it is best to start off with very simple recipes. Please don’t get me wrong I love some of the more complex mixes that some folks here have already mastered but I have so far never been able to master by myself more than a 3 or 4 flavor mix that I can vape all day.

I got into diy e-liquid to save money and I am just now getting (6 months in) to the point of having everything I need to not buy commercial e-juice and not order 100 dollars worth of flavor to find out I don’t like most of what I ordered.

By the way @Pro_Vapes I just ran across the starter kit thread and think that would be a great thread to see if it were to get finished. Thanks for all the effort you put in here

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Add to TFA good flavors
Bavarian cream
Red licorice ( I like to use as a sweetner also < 1%) but median is 5-6% that’s really high imo 3-4 gets the job done

coconut candy
vanilla bean gelato
pie crust
orange cream
caramel candy
black cherry
strawberries and cream
sweet cream ( this is a buttermilk type of cream that adds a " milky finish " )
Elderberry
Meringue

Add to Capella’s
Harvest berry ( bold bold berries dark and needs 2 weeks steep )
lemon sicily
juicy orange
strawberries and cream
lemon meringue pie ( needs a splash of lemon sicily in the mix to help it out but nice flavor )
sugar cookie v2
peanut butter v2

Add to FW
Pink Champagne
butter cream
hazelnut
bavarian cream

add to Inw
Shisha vanilla
golden apple

add to Molinbury

pink lady
pink raspberry
wild strawberry

Add to hangsen

  • Italian cream ( there best flavor imo )
    french vanilla creme
    green orange

Add to Lor Ann’s
Watermelon Clear
Strawberry natural
Blueberry natural
Bavarian cream
coconut
creamy caramel
melon
green apple
blackberry

I’m sure there’s more I’m tired I’ll try and add more to the list when I get my flavors out of storage.

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Thanks @Amy2. I will incorporate those with the final draft

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that’s what this website is for so you don’t have to use paper and pen.

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Lol i meant write on the tester bottles whats inside

something i found insanely useful yet simple is provided you mix by weight decant your pg and vg into 50 or 100 ml bottles with dripper tops on also if you look on amazon you will find a glass olive oil decanter (with air tight cap!) for your nic. because after a short while you will find yourself buying base liquids by the liter and trying to syringe vg out of a half empty liter bottle is a nightmare and free pouring while trying to be accurate to 0.01 of a gram can be just as bad

I have a 16oz PET bottle with a spout cap for my VG, and 4oz PET bottle with spout cap for my PG, and a 120ml PET bottle with spout cap for my nicotine. These work great and make it easy to be accurate with my measurements.

A note on PET bottles vs HDPE bottles vs glass bottles…
PET allows far fewer Oxygen molecules to pass through it over a given period of time than HDPE does. Glass is by far the best option for storing your larger quantities of liquids. I don’t use PET to store my larger quantity mixing supplies at all. Especially nicotine. But at my mixing table I use all PET bottles to store my smaller mixing quantities of liquids since they will be filled with new liquid frequently. In the closet I use glass, and my larger quantity of nicotine is stored in the freezer in a glass bottle.

PET bottles are shinier and transparent. HDPE are a far less transparent bottle, usually appearing to be white, but somewhat translucent at times. For example… a bottle of drinking water is PET. A bottle of Elmers glue is in an HDPE bottle. Ketchup - PET. Mustard - HDPE.

Bottle characteristics:
PET bottles will wrinkle when you squeeze them. Sometimes leaving marks in the bottle. Over time the bottles may weaken in these areas and crack.

HDPE bottles are far more durable and will hold up a lot longer. They do not wrinkle with normal use.

Glass bottles do not squeeze unless you are very very strong!

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thanks @LordVapor for the info on plastic i was not sure about what was safe to store nic in so glass was the safe bet and i’m more comfortable pouring nic from a spout even though its in vg over syringing it out of a bottle! in my cupboard i’ve started using 250ml kilner jars bought on amazon

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