Nicotine and flavors; storage alternatives and inert gases

E-liquids General
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Been vaping for 4 years now. Been DIYing for 3.

I’ve been making my mixes in amber 185ml wine bottles (but I use only 160ml of it, because my scale can only lift 600gr) and was using their original caps for some time. I noticed some flavors were being muted after a long steep, so I switched to a Grolsch Flip Top cap contraption I picked up on e-bay.

2 months ago I mixed 2 solo Marzipans (INW) @ 2%. On one of the bottles, I accidentally added nicotine during mixing, so I let it steep for 3 days and vaped it, and it was great. The second bottle, I let it steep for 2 months before I vaped it. The sweetness was still there, but all the other notes had blended into wood (if you ever chew on your pencils growing up, you will know the flavor).

It is a solo flavor. Nothing mixed in, not even nicotine ('till I vaped it). No reason for the flavors to get muted, but one.

So, I am beginning to think the culprit is the oxygen that is left in the bottle (about 25 ml). Maybe if I topped off my mixes with inert gas, I wouldn’t have muted flavors. Nitrogen and argon are out of the question. So that leaves CO2. I am going to be getting one of those CO2 generators from amazon.

Since I am at it, I might as well upgrade my nicotine and flavor storage containers. I am very weary about glass, since it breaks so easily. I was thinking non-transparent HDPE, the type they store bleach in, but couldn’t find any.

I have some semi-transparent HDPE 100ml flavor bottles, and in all of them I can smell the flavor by bringing the bottle to my nose. I can even wipe off some sort of liquid that has sipped through the bottle. I also have some PET bottles, that don’t behave the same. But PET leaches.

So, that leaves amber glass bottles.

What about 100ml aluminium bottles? Anyone toyed with those? Is anyone aware of any leaching or any funky chemical reactions if aluminium comes in contact with nicotine (100mg/ml) or flavors or CO2?

Thank you all

EDIT#1: Turns out aluminium is a bad alternative if it has a BPA-type coating, because it can leach (just like PET). New generation of aluminium bottles have a BPA-free coating.

My search highlighted another alternative. Uncoated Stainless Steel.

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More than likely the oxygen can mute flavors, but can’t say for sure. I use argon gas when I store nicotine. Like many here, I bought 9+ years of nicotine last year and stored them in glass in the freezer. It is known that oxygen compromises nicotine. I know this for a fact and that is when I fill up a tank and the air holes are open and I then don’t touch it for a month or so, it tastes like crap. I have to empty and wash the tank every time.

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You top up your flavors with argon as well?

If oxygen destroys a batch, what stops it from doing the same on the flavor? I have noticed that some high-volatile flavors have muted / don’t vape the same after the flavor bottle has been opened and not used for 6 months, even though I shake well each and every time.

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If I’m not mistaken volatiles are only affected by oxygen when they escape into the atmosphere. Like when some mixers leave their bottles uncapped, thinking it’s somehow beneficial to steeping.
If you are smelling flavors on a bottle that’s supposedly capped tight that means there’s a leak. Volatiles are escaping out. That would explain the batch becoming muted.

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@IsNoGood1 interesting questions. Most of what we use in vaping oxidizes. The more you can limit it, the better. I never use gas for anything other than long term, low temp NIC storage, so I can’t speak to using gas to stave off oxidation in other substances. I’ve had better luck with PET as far as stopping penetration to and from the bottles, but as you mentioned PET is not without issues either. Glass is typically the safest bet that people shift to if they are worried about leaching, or permeable container issues with plastics.

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The batch that was muted was in a glass bottle, hermetically closed with a Grolsch Flip Top cap w/ silicone gasket. But bottle wasn’t filled to the brim, leaving space for 25ml of air.

Solo flavor w/out nicotine. No other possible interactions but oxygen inside the bottle.

I wasn’t smelling the flavor from the batch but from a flavor that was shipped to me in an HDPE bottle. And there was slight film around the area that still had some flavor in. Which means flavor had sipped through bottle’s thin wall.

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Grolsch… That’s the culprit… Had a few too many

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I have added heat-shrinking tube on bottle neck to make a super tight fitting. I have to apply extra pressure to open or close the flip top. After mixing, I flip the bottles over, for steeping, and no liquid sips through.

What is your experience with Grolsch?

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No, not the flavors, just the nicotine. If a mix is exposed to air, then the nic can oxidize and that will affect the flavor. I keep all large amounts of juice in glass bottles and many times I’ve left mixes for months and months on end. When I do vape it almost always it tastes fine to me. It’s when I leave juice in a RTA with the air holes open that it seems to go bad, it’s the constant exposure to air that does it, I think.

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I drank 8 and called up an ex girlfriend and yelled at her for ruining my life… She died 4 years ago in a car accident, so I don’t know who I was yelling at.

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