But I’m not. And that’s what prompted this whole strange thread. I’ve been idling along for a year and a half with syringes, knowing I was not going to be making anything appealing or precise. But that changed last week with the weight mixing. It is so easy now to mix, and also so repeatable, in a way it’s sort of like being new. I can actually ‘mix’ now with dependability, accuracy, and repeat-ability. So I’ve just been thinking more broadly I guess. All of the recipes I previously stored, here and on my laptop, will be completely re-vamped now that I can get basically a higher degree of accuracy, so I now need to be more thorough.
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Something I said to another mixer just yesterday and it may or may not help.
Look for a recipe that you think you will like the flavour profile of.
Look at the % of flavours in that recipe - if they are way outside the average use (and i mean way outside). I would then start to question why (there may be a reason) but I would also probably think about adjusting the percentages to suit your own taste (this is why SF testers are really helpful).
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That’s a good point too, thanks. ‘Why does this recipe call for 14% of this when most call for 3%’. A likely answer is probably ‘Cuz he’s whack!!’
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Because some need more flavor because they MTL, and don’t take in anywhere near as much vapor.
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For quite a while i have mostly just been throwing together, some things turn out great others not so much.
When it comes to other mixers recipes i dont really go looking much anymore myself. I honestly prefer to mix recipes that is made by the fellow ELR users who i talk with and mainly users on the chat. Also, i mix some of the recipes has been recommended by users on the chat. Beside that i follow some mixers that i trust to make some nice things and whom i have similar palettes with.
It does happen but not very often that i go look for a recipe either to mix or to get inspired by, but far from as much as i did when i started mixing.
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I didn’t mean to call you a newbie. I was meant to say I’m a newbie mixer.
After mixing a few times, I’ve already grasp the concept. It is easy when mixing by weight.
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And I didn’t mean to appear offended. Call me anything you want, just don’t call me late for dinner! Rimshot
Compared to what I’ve figured about about hardware and coil building, I’m sort of like a noob with mixing too.
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I mix like all these things and not really any of them. I have made oodles of recipies as close as I could replicate them from the recipie side of here and quite a few of my own concoctions just because I got a new flavor or something sounded tasty at the time. Fact is, I’ve come to realize I don’t like ANY flavor for very long but I love to vape. How’s that for weird? Oh, I have several I come back to repeatedly but never for long. I have come to accept there is no ONE flavor to rule them all for me and that’s…ok. I’d rather have 50 handy and switch up every tankfull.
I guess that’s what makes this so much fun. There are no rules, just what works for a majority. None of that necessarily matters though on your journey to find what works for YOU.
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hmm what is this thing you speak of?
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SO what is the best way to do this? Do you suggest mixing one flavor at a time in say a 10 ml bottle, tasting it, letting it steep and retasting?
I am kind of lost where or rather how to start this
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Sparkslfly’s advice is really good. Eventually you’ll single flavor test everything so its best IMHO to start that way. Keep it simple. Find simple mixes that will keep you going. I still have a few SF that I vape.
But first you have to learn to do the dance:
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If you want something that 80% of people will like, make something strawberry flavored. LoL. Seriously, apparently that’s everyone’s favorite flavor. Not mine, fyi, although I do have some strawberry mixes I vape regularly.
Honestly, I’ll echo some of the sentiment I’ve already seen said here. Mix what you like. I’m far from famous for my recipes (or any other reason, for that matter), so if you’re looking for advice on getting that, I can’t help you. I mix for myself and I only share in the hopes of inspiring someone else.
As to narrowing down recipes to try, I struggled with that a lot at first. There weren’t half as many recipes in the DB when the forum was born, but I still had about 1,000 I wanted to try. What worked for me was figuring out what general type of thing I liked, and then I found other mixers I trusted to have good recipes I liked and followed them. I still branch out and try new things from time to time, but I make sure I always have plenty of my favorites to vape along the way.
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I did disclaim that it was a little ‘stream-of-consciousness’ of a thought process… I actually meant ‘how do you’, not how do I. Like, how do you long-timers do it personally. The general advice presented so far is excellent advice (and probably been dispensed at this mixing forum many times). And the specific things you folks do is also welcome reading. Thank you all who have opined.
My struggle is not with how to mix, it’s with how to decide what to mix. I was hoping actually that there really was some other secret way I was not aware of besides time and testing. I’m guessing there is not.
Mainly, also, I’m pretty annoyed with myself for spending a year and a half adrift in a sea of syringes, making average juices in an only slightly repeatable way. If I’d used weight from the opening bell, I could have been more highly focused this whole time, and have been much further down the road, like you guys are.
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@Lexie3
Smart and final one ounce Souffle cups and lids
5 ml of PG-VG and 3% flavoring was how I single tested all mine as they arrived.
100 small plastic cups and bar straws was my solution to all that single flavor testing.
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@Bob_Bitchen Bob did you just mix them up like single flavor recipe minus the nic? I love the cup idea but to store that for me wouldnt work so well. I even saw test tubes i was thinking of that are 5ml.
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@mrpipes answer covered it pretty succinctly. 
The key (and hardest part) is finding your balance.
If you SF test from the start (as you are acquiring your flavors), you’ll be less likely to have to try and play catch up… But my general rule of thumb is: Try and have as many testers going as I do mixes.
If I’m mixing 4 recipes, then I’m mixing 4 SF testers at the same time (usually more, because I’m still playing catchup from not being able to buy enough bottles to start with.
But, because you’re not going to know what percentages you need (prefer) for a single flavor when testing, that means you have to do 2-3 bottles for each flavor.
IE: when testing FW, I’d mix a new flavor at 4%, 6%, and 8%. For FA, I typically do one tester at 1%, and another at 3%.
So even though you’re only SF 4 flavors… You can see how that quickly turns into 10-12 bottles. and that’s in addition to the 4 “recipe mixes” that you’ve got going to simply “feed the habit”.
No ‘exploratory’ (experimenting) mixes even considered yet, and you’ve already got 14-16 bottles going. Then, if you want to try something new… That may be another 2-3 bottles (or more). So it’s easy to end up with 20+ bottles in one mixing session, for just 4-6 recipes, and 4 SF tests.
But you have to find what works for you.
The most important thing is making sure that you have enough to feed your daily requirement. (Not only so you don’t run out, but so you don’t dip into your testers before the planned testing points.)
The second most important thing (having learned the hard way) is make sure that you vary your profiles when selecting mixes and testers*! Or you risk getting burned out. Both your palate, and your frustration level with mixing! (EG: don’t mix all heavy flavors for SF testing simultaneously! Like butterscotch, caramel, brown sugar, etc. Your palate will be screaming for something different by the time you’re halfway through that few weeks or month of testing, and you’ll be miserable and get really frustrated with “this isn’t working at all”.)
*the exception to this rule is when you reach the point of doing a “shootout”. Where you’ve reached the point of knowing what percentages of SF you prefer for each brand/variation of say caramel.
You then mix one tester of each, at your preferred percentage to compare the profiles side by side. This gives you a chance to refresh, and either reaffirm your earlier notes (from SF tests) or update things you might have missed, or forgotten.
But regardless, I still consider this a part of single flavor testing (just narrowing down what you’re wanting to keep/eliminate for the long haul), and as such, when I do a shootout, I still mix a batch of SF testers (again, previously untested flavors) along with the shootout flavors, and in addition to my “daily needs” mixes.
So… You can take any part of this, all of it, or practically ignore it and blaze your own trail! 
But this is how I’ve approached things (since you asked). 
What do I think? Well, in one sense, I feel like I’m way behind my “classmates” that started at the same time, in relation to releasing recipes.
In another sense, I take solace in the fact that I know the flavors I’ve tested this far very well, and that when it comes time, I’ll be able to simply “think about” what sounds good, and be able to ‘insta-create’ a recipe that’s at least 80-90% of where I want/expect it to be, on my whim. (There’s always a refinement phase, as well as the rare ‘this flavor doesn’t chemically play well with others possibility’ to deal with or adjust for).
And lastly, I’m proud (right or wrongly so) that I haven’t “polluted” the public ELR database with recipes that are anywhere from crap, to “eh, it’s not bad”. As IMO, that’s the single biggest problem (and disservice) to new mixers. If more folks would put their pride aside, and not worry about “look what I mixed”, or some race that doesn’t exist…and keep those recipes private, new folks would have a much easier time finding at least a “good recipe” to begin with. But again, it’s all relative.
I hope my long winded rambling enables you to pull some tidbit(s) out, and have an easier road, or better understanding!
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There’s nothing more accurate than a medical grade syringe (for our purposes)! This discussion has been hashed out before, and rather than re-open it, I’ll condense to say I still mix with syringes because of the high degree of accuracy and as a result: repeatability.
As long as you are using the syringe properly, it is 100% accurate and repeatable. Whereas mixing by weight still has to contend with varying drop size (hence weight variance) from all the different types and sizes of tips on different bottles. The concensus is though, that the advantage gained (convenience and speed) far outweighs the accuracy aspect, since you’re only talking about minute variances.
I’ll agree. It’s definitely going to be faster mixing by weight. And more convenient.
But I will take issue every time when someone says mixing by weight is more accurate. Because it’s not.
This is dubious at best, but I gather you have a new found excitement, and for that, I celebrate with you!
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@Sprkslfly @Bob_Bitching
I found these and think i will try some
I just ordered a couple of these sets i think its a good price for so many, SO now make up a base pg/vg would be the next step I assume then add the flavor maybe with piplettes? I have 100s of those.
Hopefully I am on right track because i plan to whip this out as soon as they arrive
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I’m not going to argue. It doesn’t matter, I guess, what I think as long as it works for me. Having mixed for a long time with syringes and knowing how it and I interacted, I can’t see it being more accurate. This is not the purpose of the thread and it isn’t worth a long debate with furrowed brows and robust keystrokes.
So, we’ll all celebrate. Why not. The purpose of this forum is to engage those passionate about DIY mixing and exchange ideas, provide inspiration, and advance our own abilities to create vapeable things.
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I don’t want to either, nor am I trying to. Just wanted to make sure that the information for those reading is presented accurately. Preference is irrelevant.
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