GC Homogenizer & DIY Flavor Chaser One Shots
Right then…I’ve never done this before at any point during my 4 years as a vape reviewer, never…not once…I don’t think…I’m at least 100% sure that I can’t remember if I have, but I’m 98% sure I haven’t done it with the 5% or 6% of reviews I’ve done that this could refer to…
First time with a Steampugs review?..Bless your sorry soul, but… I feel it pertinent that I should clarify something from the very start, and that is…EVERYTHING I am reviewing today is made by friends of mine, well…technically not everything, but the company that is selling them are. SO…before the naysayers chirp up with their eager little beaks and accuse me of being bias, or only reviewing this BECAUSE they are my friends well…I’m definitely not bias. I kinda wanted to rip into some of them truth be told (especially Woftam’s flavours) I know…with friends like me who needs enemies? But if I wasn’t friends with these people then I wouldn’t have been put in the incredible position I find myself in today…so…you can have that one…but for what it’s worth…I don’t really care.
And the reason I don’t care is simply this; out of every write up I’ve ever done over the years, I have never written about something with as much potential to completely change the way one particular community does things as the device I am reviewing today has, and that’s not me being my usually over dramatic self either. I mean this really will turn what you think you know into something that you thought you knew, but when you thought you knew that thing you know, what you actually knew was something that I knew too, but now I know that what you knew was something that everyone else thought they knew, until one bloke knew different, and now I know what he knows, and what he knows has changed what I thought I knew into something I used to know…
SO!
Now that I’ve made my intentions as clear as mud I’d better crack on, because we have LOTS to talk about…and when I say lots…I mean more than a bit, slightly more than loads, most of which I will have no idea what I’m talking about…sound fun?..(no…not really?)
Shall we?
…
Welcome back my magical mixing maelstrom of misty maniacs, back again with absolutely nothing the same, a totally knew and unique set of products that have never graced my usually deficient, child-like attention before, and all…from a very specific part of the vaping community that I hold very dear to my heart.
Now…this may come as something of a surprise, but I wasn’t always this award winning, globally recognised reviewer who won some awards…(wow…seriously?). There once was a time when all I cared about within this incredible vaping universe related to mixing your own liquids, trust me when I say that it’s a rabbit hole all of it’s very own, and once peered into…
it is very easy to get lost in, and even harder …to find your way out…not that you’d want to.
I first started mixing my own liquids around 6 or so years ago, a hobby born from the stark reality of realising that actually…going through a £10 bottle of gourmet e-liquid every 2 days wasn’t really the financial boost I was looking for when I gave up the stinkies, no Sir! Sure…I could have stayed on the cheap ‘candy fruit’ shit I’d been vaping for the years previous and called it a day, but…just like thousands of other vapers, I started to get slightly obsessed with everything to do with this new ‘vape thing’…it wasn’t just a way of staying away from smoking anymore, this was quickly becoming a hobby, and just like every other hobby, I wanted to get the absolute best out of it. The more I become interested, the more I did my research, and it doesn’t take long to realise…that actually, there is another way, and when confronted with the fact that I could vape liquids that would taste so much better, with flavours that you never dreamed possible, which would cost a hell of a lot less…it really was a no brainer…even for me, who didn’t have much of one to begin with…
True story.
Even so, it was along this magical, mystical, mixing yellow brick road, that I happened upon a group of people I will forever be indebted to, a bunch of mixers with so much knowledge on the subject you’d be forgiven for thinking they were a group of Michelin Star chefs. In fact…if I remember rightly, I think one of them actually was. Some of these people have remained in my life to this day, and even though I have never actually met them in person, I regard them as closer friends than people I am actually friends with outside of the internet, but…regardless of how many of them I am still in touch with, every mixer I have ever met all share one thing in common, and it’s a thing that until this day has been a massive thorn in the side of e-liquid mixing…we all share the hatred and frustration…of long steeping times.
Oh yeah…nothing says frustration quite like crushing a can, and very few things in life are as frustrating as spending over a year or more perfecting that custard heavy e-liquid recipe you’ve been working on, adding that extra little touch which you KNOW this time is the all important tweak that will bring the whole thing together…and then realising you have to wait a month to taste it and find out…
Exactly.
However…as Bob Dylan once famously sang…'The times they are a changin’"…Enter…one Mr Guitarded…no…that’s not his real name, don’t be a dick, but Guitarded has been a regular on our forum ‘Vaping Community’ since the beginning, as well as the ELR Forum we all met on, and what this guy has done…incredibly…is come up with a solution to steeping that has not only turned the whole thing on its head…but rather grabbed it by the short and curlies and smashed it out of the fucking park.
So what is it?..you may well inquisitively ask. What indeed is this mythical answer to one of life’s most thought about enigmas?..How can we manipulate the complexities of time?..
Again…don’t be a dick, no, it’s not a time machine. What it is…isn’t actually new, in fact, it’s been used in many industries for a very long time, but…it’s never been made specifically for the home e-liquid mixing crowd…until now.
So enough with all the pomp and circumstance and me waffling for hours on end, please allow me to introduce you to…
The much anticipated …highly coveted…Guitarded’s GC Homogenizer.
No…it’s not BBQ lighter, and let’s be honest…it wouldn’t make a very aesthetically pleasing time machine either. Regardless, it is no less magical in what it actually does.
Now…the question I should be really asking you right about now is…what do you know about homogenisation?..Some of you may well know a great deal, after all, it’s been muttered about within the e-liquid industry for years - in fact it’s widely used by companies who mass produce juice, just on a much…much bigger scale. But…for those that don’t know what it’s all about, here’s part of a video which explains it a lot better than I can…I’d show you the whole video…but I kinda want you to be awake for the rest of the review…
That’s the technical explanation. My explanation however is this…imagine Loki is your stubborn e-liquid concentrate, the floor is your uninviting VG/PG base…and The Hulk is the GC Homogenizer…
What it basically does is Hulk smash the fuck out everything you stick it in - on a molecular level…giving it no option other than to become one uniformed substance…which…with regards to e-liquid…is exactly where you need to be. Something which up until now…could only be done with time.
Now, believe me when I say that as far as steeping e-liquid goes, NOTHING divides opinions in the e-liquid mixing community more, with each and every one of us having our own methods and beliefs as to what works best…and more importantly…most quickly. Everything from warm baths, ultrasonic cleaners, the glove box of your car on a summers day, to even more bizarre methods like putting your bottles in a net bag in the drier…(don’t try that one). And most mixers out there will profess to trying the majority…but then…in walks Guitarded like Nick Fury in Iron Man II with his…
attitude.
And I have to admit…he’s shut a lot of us the fuck up…not an easy task.
I confess…I was skeptical, I thought “Pfft…yeah right…more underwhelming steeping methods that don’t work…I’ll stick to my month in the dark room thanks”…and I expect, even after reading this, a lot of mixers will still be too ‘set in their ways’ to even consider this witchcraft and fuckery.
So…
In a truly serendipitous manner an opportunity arose. You see, one of the guys that I run our forum with, Woftam - who himself is a very talented mixer - is affiliated with a company out in Canada called ‘DIY Flavor Chasers’, who sell their own range of one shots, all made by a selective group of talented mixers from all over the world (even me…we’ll come to that…one doesn’t want to blow one’s trumpet too soon, so to speak…ahem). And Zippy over at DIYFC asked me to review a bunch of these one shots for them, so…I asked for desserts only and that’s what I got, 12 of them to be exact, and what better way of testing the GC than by seeing what it can do with a bunch of proven long steepers? So, that’s the experiment I carried out, but…we’ll come to that shortly. First, it’s time we took a closer look at the GC Homogenizer (GC stands for Game Changer…in case you were wondering)…
Before I start going on with myself about things I probably have no business talking about, I’ll let Guitarded take the reins and explain exactly what his little ‘probe’ is …and does…
"The word homogenize means “to make or render homogeneous” while homogeneous means “having the same composition, structure or character throughout” . Doing a search on eBay for Homogenizer will bring up one set of results. Doing a search for high shear mixer will yield different results for basically the same equipment. Picture a mortar and pestle smashing everything to a uniform size and composition because that is what is happening.
The GC is a high shear mixer and the end result is a homogeneous mix made by mechanical means with the exception of of the use of heated VG which when combined with mechanical forces will cause the flavor materials to be dissolved in the VG and have the “same composition, structure and character throughout” the e juice mix.
Flavor concentrates consist of the base flavor materials dissolved in pg and others which may be or are necessary to keep them dissolved. VG is a poor solvent and flavor materials separate from it. Some concentrates readily dissolve in VG and others damned near never do. This is like a water oil mix which will not combine unless an emulsion is made by mechanical forces i.e. a homogenizer. Maybe a better example is milk. Cream will separate from milk unless it has been homogenized. Then it will remain stable and uniform throughout.
So homogenization with a high shear mixture goes like this:
The material is drawn up into the apparatus by a rapidly rotating rotor (blade) positioned within a static head or tube (stator) containing slots or holes. There the material is centrifugally thrown outward in a pump like fashion to exit through the slots or holes. Because the rotor turns at a very high rpm, the materials are rapidly reduced in size by a combination of extreme turbulence, cavitation, and mechanical shearing occurring within the narrow gap between the rotor and the stator."
Jesus…almost sorry I asked, I’m writing a review not a fucking book Guitarded…prefer my Hulk explanation if I’m perfectly honest…aaanyway, what I can tell you is that the GC is a work of fucking art.
And so it should be. Guitarded is, after all, a retired tool maker by trade who holds Degrees in engineering, and one is a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering (BSME). So this thing hasn’t just been thrown together, it’s taken him 2 years of solid graft to get it to where he’s happy with it…the man is a perfectionist…you can’t not appreciate that - if he saw something that wasn’t quite right…
You get my drift.
As far as actually using the thing, if I can work it out without injuring myself or anyone in my immediate vicinity (I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine), here’s what you do… simply unscrew the collar off your rotary tool, and screw the little white gear onto the end where you would normally put your bit…
Then screw the GC onto where you took the collar off, unscrew the Thumbscrew on the side…
Push the Stator into place, tighten it up again…done…simples.
And seeing as I was quite intrigued as to what materials he used to make the GC and why…I made the costly mistake of asking him…again…
"I set out to design something affordable for the DIY ejuice mixing community. High shear mixers are commonly used across the medical and pharmaceutical fields (and others) that require the ability to withstand high temperature cleaning by autoclave and other means. When used for e juice we don’t have a need for that when ordinary cleaning methods and alcohol will serve our needs completely. We are not processing cancerous tumors etc. I looked there as means to reduce costs. I then researched FDA/USDA materials classified as safe for food contact. After many trials I chose 304 and 316 stainless steels, Acetal POM trade name Delrin, and PTFE trade named Teflon. By using Acetal in several places I am able to cut machining and labor times. It will not withstand temps over 190F so these will not withstand high temp cleaning. PTFE will withstand over 400F. I would like to have it emphasized that these are made solely for e juice purposes. I know they would work for other purposes but have no interest in dealing with that."
Ffs…mate…Lolly who proof reads all my shit is gonna have a coronary when she sees this…
Of course…the GC doesn’t work on it’s own, what it does do might well be magical…but it doesn’t actually run on magic. You’ll need one of a small(ish) bunch of rotary tools to power it, like a Dremel 4000, Black & Decker RTX, or in my case a Tacklife RTD36AC,
Whether more will be added in the future, or for questions as to which one to actually buy, they can be answered by the man himself should you fancy getting yourself a GC. But I think that’s enough technical jargon for now, what everyone really wants to know is…DOES IT FUCKING WORK OR WHAT??..I know…I feel you.
So, here’s the test: 30ml of each of the one shots were mixed around 3 weeks ago, all mixed at the recommended percentages, from 15% to 20% depending on the flavour. They were then shut away in the dark room until I was ready for the next step.
It was easy enough to set up using everything I already had…
I heated my base up to the desired 60 degrees using an electric hob, a large pan of water, several beakers, and a clip on milk thermometer…
There’s no set way to achieve this, use whatever method you fancy to heat your base, but Guitarded advises that 60 degrees is the optimum temperature to achieve the correct viscosity to ensure full homogenisation…so…do that.
Simply add your flavours and your heated base liquid into a suitable container, the image below is me mixing 200ml of one of my own recipes just to show you that you need to make sure the hole you see just under the liquid line NEEDS to be submerged, I can’t stress this enough. You absolutely HAVE to have the GC in the liquid BEFORE you turn it on, the reason being is that this thing runs so fast that it needs the liquid in the Stator to lubricate it, turn it on outside the liquid and you run the risk of shredding the gears, just like an engine, it needs oil to work properly.
Then all that’s left to do is to turn it on and ramp it up for around a minute…Seeing it do it’s thing is the oddest thing to watch, for a start, there’s no bubbles like you get with a frother, and this is a good thing, you don’t want added air in your mix - that won’t do it any favours at all. Although when you watch it, it looks like it is actually creating millions of tiny bubbles, what they actually are - are gases formed by combining the materials, and cavitation which is caused by the high speed of the rotor…no…do I fuck know what that means…I literally just asked Guitarded (shrugs).
You don’t have to use lab gear like this either - as long as you can fit the GC into it and the liquid covers that second hole, you’re golden. For the purposes of this review, I actually used 100ml Chubby bottles for the all important second batch…
So what you’re left with after a minute or so of Hulk smashing the shit out of those molecules, is something resembling a very healthy ‘sample’ of baby gravy…however, you don’t have to let this ruin your day if you don’t want to, if you have on hand an ultrasonic bath, stick your bottle in there for a few, and all those little gas pockets will almost instantly disperse, leaving you with a crystal clear, ready to vape e-liquid…once it’s cooled anyway. And if you don’t have an ultrasonic - which I do but I’m pretty sure it’s made for a dolls house - then just leave your bottle overnight and by morning it will be crystal clear and ready to rock…which I did.
Also worthy of note, a few of the beta testers of the GC actually bought the Dremel stand to use along with the GC. After a bit of butchering it suits the GC well…
But…even though I did buy the stand and use it for the first few mixes, I just found it easier to hold the GC in the bottle. For the amount of time you actually have it running it really is no mither at all, so I doubt I’ll be using the stand again. That being said…there are a couple of things to look out for if you do this, mainly…there is so much energy being thrown around the inside of your bottle that your bottle tends to move around a bit if not secured, also…the suction from the bottom of the Stator can suck on to the bottom of the bottle and actually pick it up. So…the best method I found was to hold your rotary tool in one hand with your finger on the switch (remember you can’t run this thing without it being in liquid) and use your other hand to hold your bottle…I literally did this yesterday with 12 different mixes and it worked out juuuuust fine.
SO!..That’s the experiment out of the way, Jesus Christ I’ve just seen how much I’ve written…my word, Lolly I am so sorry…
Alright! Alright!..Fuckin’ hell…tough crowd!..Shoot me after, I’m only half way through…(ducks)
Okeydiddlydokie…time for Part Two, the results!..(trumpet fanfare)
Now, as touched on earlier, the one shots used in the test were supplied to me by Zippy over at DIY Flavor Chaser . They’re based in Canada but use mixers from across the globe - some of you may have heard of a few of them, such as Fresh03, Luke Loop, Sheerluck Ohms as well as a whole host of others, all extremely talented mixers…
And as a massive added bonus, they’ve even got a page of one shots from the Vaping Community - Forum admin, Woftam, Grubby and yours truly, find that page here - all proceeds from these one shots go directly to the running of the forum, which is so cool…and so needed! Anyway, I’m not reviewing mine and Grubby’s mixes today, that would make me a massive narcissist…which I am normally…but a couple of Woftam’s (Myster Fog) mixes are in there, as well as Luke Loop, Sheerluck Ohms, Tami Vapes, The Juice Fairy & Immortal Shots. 2 mixes from each mixer, all tested on 2 rigs, both single coil RDA’s, both loaded with fresh bacon for each flavour, both running on 70w through identical fused claptons @ 0.24Ω, one rig for the normally steeped liquids, and one for the GC mixed liquids, alternating between flavours…it’s almost as if…I took this seriously…
Always the consummate professional, as you all know. I would never play the Joker with something as ground breaking and serious as the GC…it’s high time I showed you the results…so…one batch of just over 3 weeks steeped liquid versus a batch done the day before this test…
DIY Flavor Chaser - One Shots
Immortal Shots - Caramapple Tart - ‘Caramapple Tart is a baked Apple tart slathered with cinnamon caramel, and served up with a side of vanilla custard’
Over the years I’ve tried many apple based recipes - pies, tarts, crumbles…you name it, but I’ve never really found one that I gelled with. For me personally the ‘apple’ has always been a bit ‘crisp’…which…once it’s been in the oven isn’t generally the case. What Immortal Shots has managed to do is make the apple in this recipe taste ‘baked’…and…more importantly…utterly caramelized. On the inhale you get that tartly baked apple enveloped in a rich caramel, giving it tremendously warm mouthfeel, and only on the exhale I can pick out the cinnamon and custard, both are light and the cinnamon is more of a back note, which to be honest I was quite relieved about as cinnamon can very easily overpower a recipe. The custard is just there to offer that creamy sweet mouthfeel rather than being upfront and dominant. Superbly well balanced recipe and quite possibly the best apple tart I have tried to date - Both mixes were identical.
Immortal Shots - Cornbread Puddin’ - ‘A slice of cornbread with vanilla cream cheese pudding’
I bought a bottle of Cornbread Pudding from Country Clouds about a year ago as it was being super hyped everywhere I was looking, and I actually liked it, which is rare for a store bought juice. The only issue I had with it was that the flavour wasn’t strong enough for me. This however…is absolutely next level. The overall flavour is very similar, you get the vanilla cream cheese almost instantly which is a thick, rich vanilla, quite sweet, almost milky, but a really full flavour, And then on the exhale you get that roasted corn tone from the cornbread alongside it, it’s a beautifully put together mix and quite a strong flavour which I really dig - as far as dessert vapes go…this one is right up there, and if I ever found myself in the Deep South, sat there perving on my own cousin…this is what I would imagine I’d be vaping.
Both mixes were identical.
, they’ll no doubt be some that simply won’t believe it and will refuse to try it, but whatever, I haven’t found a flavour it doesn’t work with yet, and neither has anyone else that has tried it, it’s incredible.
lol
Didn’t think it needed mentioning sorry man 
