Hi guys,
I know what acids do for our mixes and from my cuisine background I have some; malic, tartaric, citric & ascorbic acids in powder form. I also know that they will go into VG at a max of 5% and PG at 10%.
Does anyone make their own “sours” , any tips on making my solutions. I plan on making 10%pg solutions up. Going to use a milk frother for like 10 minutes. Thoughts?
I did make a Citric Acid base from powder, but I didn’t use it much. I come to see the benefits of Sours in fruit mixes. I’m now using Sour Wizard FA for my fruit enhancer and it works beautifully. I don’t know what they use to create SW, but it does the job for me. Usage is less than 1% so it’s also cost effective with no guess work involved.
Apply some heat first it will disolve easier (60c water bath).
yeah that makes sense, this guy says " it has an annoying tendency to decompose when heated" Have you dissolved this yourself at 60c - http://everything2.com/title/citric+acid
No dont heat the vg or pg to 60 put it in a container then put the container in a water bath that is 60 deg you want to gently heat to assist it in disolving.
Not being rude. I understood that- my concern was degradation. The link implies degradation with heat.? Have you done this yourself,
Btw I have a temperature controlled water bath, which I can dial into 0.1°c. My issue is I have limited PG/VG left & I don’t have a reference substance to check against for quality. So am going in blind & hoping to draw on your experience. Else I’ll have to buy a bottle of sour to compare. Wikipedia is stating 14.7% solubility at 20°c I might try that. Yes it’ll take a while then I can do a batch at a higher temp when I get more PG I wonder what the highest temp I can get to without degradation. If you have done it at 60° and are confident with the results let me know. How long did you do it for?
Na not reading it as rude at all.
Yes I have done it not with pg but with vg. From the research I did prior to disolving I don’t think that the citric acid will degrade below 75C. Since this is the only way I have done it if don’t know if it degraded at all as I dont have a comparison.
It disolved quite quickly (I was usung a water bath @ 60c on a mag stirrer). While I didnt measure the exact temp of the vg I can only guess at the actual temperature but I know it would have been under 60C.
I think from memory in vg you will only be able to get a %5 solution pg 10% and 15% in ethyl alcohol.
Hope that helped. Please LMK if you find something different.
Cheers
yes the literature on the web confirms your solubilitys for each liquid. I’ve decided to do %10 PG. I also assume that PG has no issues being heated.
OK I’ll set my water bath to 60.0 on the button. I don’t have a magnetic stirrer (DIY project on the way) but I’ll use the magnetic stirrer after 10 minute bath. I might do a bunch at 20c as i’m only doing PG I’d hate to think I don;t need to go to all the effort to warm it up. If that doesn’t work then It’ll go in the bath. I’ll feedback with my observations. I personally think its best to keep it as cool as possible but not stirr for hours. Find the sweetspot another lot of data to have a look at one day. But for now I just want 4 lots of 10% PG solutions. SO will worry about that later. I’m glad to know I can whack the temperature up.
I am going to have to order some sour from TFA to make sure I have a similar product I suppose, but I can’t see why not. Oh for a mass spectrometer. Anyone got one?
Here goes nothing, got to stop being such a perfectionist but it’s nice to have the first hand data)
Citric acid and tfa sour are not the same (as far as I know) I am pretty sure that tfa sour is Malic Acid (not 100% sure) can any one confirm?
Yes you are right. It is malic for sour. I’m going to make a batch for all 4 acids so I’ll be comparing the TFA sour to my malic acid solution. 99% sure of that. I’ll have to get some nudenicotine samples to compare the others I think, but if malic is good I think I can trust the other 3. But I do like to check. Later in time though.
I made up a 10% batch of CA from aqueous powder by weighing I gram of powder and added 9 grams of pg and shook it for a couple of minutes then left it overnight before using it in fizzmustards nana cream clone. It did make the juice sparkle, in fact I thought Id come across the magic elixir of fruity vapes … for a day, by the 2nd day the juice left in the tank had lost most of the layering and the whole character of the juice had changed.
Maybe Id made a pigs ear of the mixing or steeping, but Ive decided to use it in same way as I do with EM and sucralose i.e. just add it to a small bottle on the day I intend to use it
interesting. definitely something to look at there.
Ok guys I’ve looked everywhere and the only thing I could find is this in regards to heat & degradation.
http://dowac.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7485/~/propylene-glycols---stability-%26-storage
It would seem 40°c is the maximum temperature recommended for heating PG. So I’ll follow that, it will increase my solubility a lot anyways.
So plan is to heat PG to 40° on the button and make my acid solutions from that using a milk frother. I’ll be making 10% solutions for malic, tartaric & citric. 5% for Ascorbic. Then some tests. Obviously add some sparkle to fruit, I also think they will help with most anything. Acids provide a saliva stimulus
Ok guys, solutions complete.
I have a water bath at 40°c
measured PG into a thin Plastic beaker whilst on scale.
Tare. Sprinkle 10% of acid into beaker.
Hold Submerged just base of beaker in bath
Milk frother for 3-5minutes (check all dissolved)
Happy, decant into dropper bottle.
Worked beautifully & easily can recommend it as only took about 6 minutes tops per solution.
Now to play with my acids. Awesome
Interested in the application of tartaric. An MSDS I looked at confirmed your use of 40degrees centigrade but also revealed that PG may have reaction with strong acids and or bases. Thoughts?
Had not considered.
Ok , so acids are used as a catalyst with ketones & aldehyde to produce other stuff. There’s no details about this reaction e.g. Temperature, pressure, etc I can’t find any other reactions between acid & PG. It’s a catalyst.
So knowing that I can assume if ketones and aldehyde is around shit can go down. Else nothing from what I’ve found so far. Ketones have toxicity very low & they exist in your body naturally so no problem.
The fact that nude nicotine sells these solutions and the intention is for vaping is s good sign. So I can’t see any issues. For me that’s good enough. Further research would most likely verify that it is not an issue. Is my conclusion
CA for your citrus / tropical blends and MA for your berry blends. My personal advise.
Not bought as a powder but lorann do a ready made mixture of Citric and Malic Acid called Loranns Tart & Sour not an overly potent addition to mixes, but can make apple and pear like flavours a little more interesting if you like a touch of sour in your mixes.
Yeah I’ve seen that. What percentages are they mixed do you think? Or would anyone by an off chance knowa