Odd VG/PG percentages and the role of nicotine in weight based mixing (a calculation based approach)

E-liquids Beginners
1

Hello everyone,
my name is David I am a 27 year old economics student from Vienna and I’m vaping for almost 2 years now. I used vaping to quit cigarettes. Started mixing about 2 month ago and a few days ago I decided that I don’t want to be washing syringes anymore. So I ordered a scale and it arrived today. I decided to first mix a juice I know and like but in this process I had a :open_mouth: moment.

As I did not want to highjack someone else thread concerning “mixing by weight” which there are lots of and I have dug trough a handful of them. I will be posting this here because I had not introduced myself till now. I hope I do not break any forum rules and do not upset anybody as that is in no way my intent.

In my life I have been told from birth throughout university that there are no stupid questions.
But let me surprise you right here and now:

What I’m trying to make:

“D’ohnuts clone” by voipninja

which I have adapted only quantity (28 to 10ml) and nicotine strength (6mg/ml to 3mg/ml) wise using the built in adaptation tool (tiny blue wrench)

As I am a total noob and don’t know how to crosslink it you’ll now see a picture of that recipe-
which in fact assumes that I will be using 100mg/ml nicotine base in PG and 0mg/ml PG- as well as VG-dilutant but I will not. (I don’t have such fancy things here in Austria under the cold reign of TPD. I just have the Czech Republic on my boarder which does not comply with the lobbyists wishes and is still able to supply me with 48mg/ml in 100ml bottles instead of max. 20mg/ml in 10ml bottles which I properly salute!)

picture:(please work)

end result should be:

VG/PG: 70/30

10ml @ 3mg/ml

What I have:
all flavourings
3mg/ml VG
0mg/ml PG
48mg/ml PG (which acts as the nic base)

Weight calculation:

implying:

Weight of PG: 1.038g/ml
Weight of VG: 1.26g/ml
Weight of pure Nicotine: 1.01g/ml

Notice: I know that there is a different g/ml specification for every flavour and even though I will have a lot of decimals
in the base ingredients (PG,VG,nic) I will for simplicity troughout assume that flavours used have 1g/ml.

for the 3mg/ml VG:

(weight of nicotine in 100ml of the solution) + (weight of VG in 100ml of the solution)

1,01 x 0,3 + 1.26 x 99,7 = 125,925g/100ml = 1,25925g/ml

for the 48mg/ml PG (acts as the nic base):

(weight of nicotine in 100ml in the solution) + (weight of PG in 100ml in the solution)

1,01 x 4,8 + 1,038 x 95,2 = 103,6656g/100ml = 1,036656g/ml

Now to mixing it all together:

the combined volume of the flavours is 2ml so 2g which I will be subtracting from the 0mg/ml PG.

7ml of 3mg/ml VG………………8,81475 g

0,8ml of 0mg/ml PG……………0,8304 g

0,2ml of 48mg/ml nic base……0,2073312 g

2ml of flavouring……………….2 g
————————————————————
11,8524812 ~ 11,85g

So in my final recipe there are: (obviously I’m introducing a small error from now on because I retreat to rounding numbers to 3 decimals)

VG solution: ~74,371% split into the 2 components in terms of total weight (11,85g) pure nicotine: ~0,179% / pure VG: ~74,192%

PG: ~7,001%

flavours (assumed to be 100%PG imagine the flavour does not exist as this does not contribute to my final point): ~17,515%

nic base: ~1,749% split into the 2 components in terms of total weight (11,85g) pure nicotine: ~0,082% / pure PG: 1,665%

What this leaves me with:

~74,371% VG
~26,181% PG
~0,261% of pure nicotine

so I have made myself some 74/26 VG/PG juice, all errors excluded.
(also I have managed to pull 0,813% of something out of thin air because of rounding errors)

Now after this wall of text let me finally get to my point which probably could have been made without all this…I don’t know…maybe not.
Also I have questions. Although nobody will be willing to answer those after reading trough all this :frowning:

  1. I attribute the weight difference of my adaptation to the fact that a VG weight of somewhere around 1,2614… was assumed in the original recipe.

  2. can it be called 70/30 when it is obviously not? and what does this mean for me when mixing a recipe someone else has made?
    I fully understand that I will with 99.99% certainty not taste the same thing the creator has tasted when creating the recipe but that’s not the point.
    The point is how much different it will taste when not using the exact same nic base as him?

I’m probably overthinking the whole thing and be sure I mixed it up anyway (it tastes very good) and by this point I have started to realise that it probably does not make a huge difference but I would still gladly hear other peoples opinion. Especially on the VG/PG ratio thing.
I also may have miscalculated and that would of course explain everything.

One more thing, English is not my first language which may has contributed a lot to the fact that this read was mentally exhausting to some.
For that I’d like to apologise.

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  • Using volume, you will have a 70% / 30% mix.
  • using weight, you will have a 74% / 26% mix.
  • Nicotine should have no flavor / taste, so you should have the same taste as the original recipe creator intended.

Note that palm based VG is slightly sweet, so yours (if the VG % is higher than in original recipe) may be a tiny bit sweeter than specified (so little you may not even notice it).

HTH

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Thank you for replying. Cool name btw.

I read your comment and immediately realised that the ratio is going to be skewed towards more VG because it is heavier and therefore contributes more grams per ml to the final weight. Duh. Now I feel really stupid.
Next time I will probably think a bit more before posting.

Also thank you for the tip regarding palm based VG.

I guess this thread can be closed now.
Do I have to delete it or does it get closed after a certain time of inactivity?

1 Like
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Na its fine left open mate for info of people who are searching out answers and may want to post. :+1:

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I mix and store all my liquid at 0mg and then add 25mg/ml nic to achieve a juice from 2-4mg/ml depending on what mod, atty and build Im going to be using it with. . .or if I need a little more help waking up or getting through the day. I never notice a change in flavor other than the increased nic throat hit (TH).

In my opinion vaping a different build results in more flavor variation than modifying the total flavor percents…pg/vg ratio affects flavor a lot though. Reducing PG below ~35% starts reducing flavor petception, particularly of lighter floral notes IME, YMMV.

Your English is great and dont feel like you need to go crazy trying to be perfect asking questions. While ELR has grown and become a bit more rowdy over the years, I hope youll find this place is full of people that either are currently in your shoes or were at some time.

Welcome aboard. Keep digging, asking, and learning. Good luck and happy mixing.

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Thank you very much for the reply, the kind words and the ideas.

I will probably implement your method for single flavour testing because that way I would be able to test one flavour at slightly different percentages and ratios without mixing it again. Plus, I could finally make use of these 20mg/ml PG nicotin shots I bought in a not so well thought through buying spree. This is great!

Regarding the different builds. I noticed there are a lot of threads about that. Thanks for steering me in the right direction on this topic. I never really wondered if there is a special build or mod or combo to go with for testing flavours. I just always used the same old goon with different builds and tried not to vape custard directly followed by fruit than biscuit if possible.

I’m only starting out and I have already spent way too much money. My mixing equipment and flavour stash to knowledge ratio is pretty bad you could say. :disappointed:
But if I’m going to get into a new hobby, what better way to do it than buying a specific tool first. :bearded_person:

BTW this forum is awesome! Vaping has really come a long way. What a time to be alive!

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