I’ve made some disgusting sh*t… When I try to start with too many flavors in a new mix it’s not always pretty. Other than a few flukes that I got lucky on, I like to start a new recipe with just a few flavors (around 3) and then tweak them by adding in more flavors each time I make a new batch. That seems to work well.
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OK… so what I do (I rarely test a single flavor, maybe two or three)
Once I test it and say “Hmmm… this needs something…”
I think about it for a minute, dump it into a cylinder, ask my taste buds what it needs and then I search the notes section on that flavor on say… Vanilla Custard or Bavarian Cream or Caramel or whatever and decide how much to add based on the notes. I take whats in the beaker do the math and add the flavor, shake the heck out of it and let it sit overnight and try it again.
The thing is some of those creams are powerful and you only need 1.5% to get the “note” of the cream so there’s no blanket rule and custards have to steep a while.
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Thanks.
I’ve debated writing something a guide or something based on my findings, but then I learn something new and realize that I don’t know sh*t about DIY.
Yet. Some day…
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@Sprkslfly don’t think there is a good rule for cutting flavors in mixes. At least not one that’s a one size fits all. The reason is that some flavors have a very narrow margin of usage between what’s too much and not enough. Additionally, many flavors will be accentuated while others subdued depending on what they’re mixed with. You need to hone your skills and learn how your flavors work together.
First thing I would recommend is getting a copy of The Flavor Bible. It’s available on Google Books, Amazon and elsewhere. I have a digital copy and use it all the time and it’s a recommendation by our resident chef, @DarthVapor from maybe a year ago. It will help you discover flavor pairings, many of which it’s doubtful you would ever think of on your own.
Second, VapeyMama has a good approach which I’ve used and find it works quite well. [quote=“VapeyMama, post:8, topic:84083”]
like to start a new recipe with just a few flavors (around 3) and then tweak them by adding in more flavors each time I make a new batch.
[/quote]
You can use this method in conjunction with The Flavor Bible to decide what flavors to add. You can, of course, be experimental and I personally believe that’s where some awesome flavor combinations come from, but I think you’ll get instant gratification if you have a determined approach at first.
Lastly I would like to see you resign yourself to the fact you will make some crap. We all do. The only way around making crap is to never experiment and to stick with tried and true recipes. But if you choose to create…crap will come. And if you’re like me it will come more often than winners 
Just remember, complexity in mixing is a natural progression from learning your flavors and lots and lots of experimentation.
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I do a lot of singles. I don’t hate doing them, in fact I kind of enjoy it. I know, I’m odd. When I’m lacking inspiration, it gives me something to mix and test for the next month so at least I don’t feel like I’ve got nothing going on. 
What I usually do is about once a month or so whip up 15 or so single flavors I haven’t done yet and test them once a week for a month. I’ve been really trying to focus on taking good notes on what the flavors taste like and not just saying “mm I like this…” LoL. But then once I’m done with those singles, there’s usually like 2-3ml left in the bottle. When I get the urge, I’ll rummage through and pick a few out that I think would make a decent mix, dump them in a tank, and see what I think. It breaks up the singles monotony and I can try stuff out without worrying about wasting a ton of flavoring.
To answer your actual question though, I mix my singles pretty low and usually will use them in mixes at what I test them at. But, if you’re mixing them at 10%+ I’d say half is a good place to start. Obviously it depends on if you want it to be a main flavor or a supporting flavor and how strong it is, but a good (read: probably terrible) rule of thumb is 5% mixer for the ‘weak’ flavors and 2% for the ‘strong’ ones. If I haven’t got a clue on a flavor, there’s not many notes, and I’ve never used it, that’s what I usually go with. Most FA, Flavorah, and Inawera get the 2% treatment. Most Cap and FW get the 5%. TPA is so all over the map with their flavors that if I really don’t have a clue, I’ll do something like 3%. Live and learn I suppose.
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I still have a direct link to my google drive, if you are in need of the digital copy.
Find it here;
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Making single flavours is the key but using a combination of concentrates to make that single flavour.
There is no single consentrate thats perfect, you have to use common sense with flavours and combine them to achieve your flavour
I use around 4 or more flavours to make one flavour
Ie, to make a nice strawberry i use
Sweet strawberry cap 8%
Ripe strawberry tfa 3%
Lemon sicily cap 2%
Marshmallow fa 2%
This is just an example not a receipe
I Mix the consentrates together before mixing into your base but thats up to you, it saves me storage space then having loads of consentrates laying around, but thats after you found the right combo of flavours to make the one.
When you mix and find the perfect flavour using a combo of consentrates
Add it to your base mix at what ever ratio you prefer, 10% higher/lower its up to you and it will taste the same always apart from strenth 
.
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A very good idea, and once I get a few things to come together, I plan on keeping it few ‘stones’ on hand for just that reason! =)
Also, I definitely needed sleep earlier, as I unintentionally “lied through my teeth” when I posted something (which I’ll elaborate on shortly (once I get to the pc to be able to reply to a few other things with easier access to formatting).
When I wrote:
“To speak of” would have been better stated as “by comparison”.
I’ve definitely mixed a few (in fact, more than I realized) of some popular recipes here, and had to check my notes to realize how many, I’ve actually done, as I’ve got SO many more that I’ve yet to try, due to still getting flavors together. But the one’s that I dug out notes for (relatively easily) were:
Sinnamon Cookie Kustard by Ken_O_Where
Snickerdoodle by bigted209
- which incidentally, I didn’t realize were ‘the same’ until I just went back to the pics I saved to retrieve this. >< (For those wondering, Ken’s post was 3 days earlier…)
Blueberries and Cream by ThirdWorldOrder posted by Krucial Juice
which is the SAME RECIPE AS (barring the tweaking to the base ing’s.) the following:
Ketchup Milk - Simple Blueberries and Cream - by ThirdWorldOrder
6% Tiger’s Blood by Haitianboy420
(which I made for a friend -who loved it, but personally, it wasn’t anything I’ll put into personal use. Even still, I halved the percentages before giving it to my friend. 12%+ on anything just ‘isn’t going to work’ for me.)
Triple C’s (Caramel Cream Cake) by [ENYAWREKLAW] I did this one early on, and I didn’t have several of the proper flavors to make this exactly, so substitutions were made, which as we know, changes things from what the creator intended to convey. So I can’t share my notes on that, as they’re not valid.
Birthday Cake by NotCharlesManson
This was very surprisingly not my cup of tea at all. Also worth noting, I didn’t have Meringue FA at the time, so IIRC (notes are on the laptop) TFA was subbed for FA.
Cinapple Fritter [DIYorDIE: returnity]
Again, another one that I bastardized to hell and back (thanks to subbing) early on, so again, not fair to comment.
muffin man clone (spot on) by Joey350z
This one was really good, but I still had to sub Double Apple CAP for Ina’s TwoApples (which I halved the percentage to 2% -could have even possibly gone 1% though).
So there’s at least a few that I’ve made, but I guess although it wasn’t intended to be lying, it was an overstatement/oversimplification on my part to say the least.
Basically though, what I was trying to convey was that, when I’ve done single flavor mixes (of what? easily 50-60 flavors at this point?) that have been at bare minimum 2, usually 3, and sometimes 4 or more variations PER SF…that add’s up to a ton more mixing (3 variants each for 60 = 180 tests, vs only a few mixes of most of the above) than ‘living off of creating pre-done recipes’. Not that there’s anything AT ALL wrong with that… it’s just that I’ve been hitting things from the entirely opposite direction. My thinking being, if I can get my SA’s learned first, then the rest should fall naturally into place (well, at least more easily), but I had the ‘momentary’ question of…“I wonder if anyone else, hitting this like I have been, has found a ‘method in the madness’ during the process, as they graduated into mixing an actual recipe?”
Again, sorry I’m unable to be more concise in times like above, when it’d really be helpful. I hope this makes sense.
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Completely agree.
Yep. Huge difference. It’s like being 6 years old in the kitchen all over again (when I first learned to cook). But at least we have the advantage of a reference point (cooking) to translate once things finally do start to ‘fall into place’!! 
[quote=VapeyMama]I like to start a new recipe with just a few flavors (around 3) and then
tweak them by adding in more flavors each time I make a new batch. That
seems to work well.[/quote]
Great advice!! Much appreciated!
That’s more or less what I’ve been doing on the “Southern Charm” that I’ve been trying to recreate. I’ve got at least 8 variants so far, and have been subbing different brands, different percentages, etc. (and trying to keep it methodical as I’ve gone, so that I can see/address the changes). And I’ve been making progress, but still more work to go.
That ‘clone attempt process’ appears to be laying the foundation work for building future recipes from scratch…so my limited experience thus far definitely affirms your suggestion and methodology!
Interesting. My fear here (unfounded or not) would be that the flavors would not be mixing at the same rate, and that things would change, and then not be repeatable in the future when you sling it all together at once. (Assuming that I understood you correctly, and you’re leaving time in between testing, and adding more flavoring then testing later etc -as I know that some have mentioned doing)
Working on it brother! Trust me! 
Already done!! I have a pdf copy (WRONG. see below), but I need to get it printed off and have it more accessible for ‘on the go’ situations I think. (It’s truly a great resource as well!)
Called out, AND read into at the same time. LMAO!! 1000 points for you.
Yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head to some degree, and I probably have (to some degree) not focused much on ‘jumping into’ trying to do multi-ingredient recipe’s. Intentionally so.
One, I know I have to learn these things, to be able to make use of them as a whole.
Two, I’m just frustrated by “not feeling further along”. But there’s a shit ton of flavors to learn, and even having mixed up a bare minimum of 200 vials over the last few months, I look at the spread on the table, and see that I have at least that many to go (as SA/SF tests)…it’s just kind of daunting. So I’m trying to look up to see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ to remind me (or more correctly: give me the stamina), as well as gather some information that I can use in the hopefully not to distant future, while maintaining sight of the end goal: creating some “semblance of a recipe” on demand, from scratch. =)
[quote=JoJo]I usually…whip up 15 or so single flavors I haven’t done yet and test them once a week for a month. I’ve been really trying to focus on taking good notes on what the flavors taste like and not just saying “mm I like this…” LoL. But then once I’m done with those singles, there’s usually like 2-3ml left in the bottle.
When I get the urge, I’ll rummage through and pick a few out that I think would make a decent mix, dump them in a tank, and see what I think. It breaks up the singles monotony and I can try stuff out without worrying about wasting a ton of flavoring.[/quote]
Likewise!! I think my error this last two times, was simply that I didn’t ‘spread the spectrum’ of flavors out widely enough.
The last time it was mostly berries/fruits, this time it was mostly ‘heavy’ stuff. Custards, caramel’s, butterscotches, etc…So I think what I need to do to keep from getting ‘burnout’ on SA testing, is to make sure that I keep the selection varied. EG: compare two caramels, two blueberry, two strawberry, two creams, etc. Then if I need to do a ‘shootout’ -then revisit one that I took notes on previously as a refresher.
@DarthVapor: Thank you for the link!!!
I checked and found that I only had the .epub version before, so I made sure to grab the PDF!
Anyways, I sincerely appreciate all the wonderful input from everyone!!
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There’s just some cool people on ELR huh? Well you have the tools in front of you. You have the support of ELR. Only thing left is you. Get to mixing. Take some of those flavors you’ve tested and combine them. If you need to have a rule of thumb for reducing them in a mix just follow @JoJo advice and start with half what you’d use as a SA flavor. It’s easy to bump them up if needed. Take 2 or three flavors, mix them, taste and then adjust what you feel needs a bump. Then if you feel another flavor is useful, add that at half the SA percent, taste, bump and so on. I have a good example for you. Right now I have a new mix I’m working on that started as an idea for a RY4 and Apple mix. It started with RY4 and Apple, then I upped the RY4 and found it was good, but I vaped a tank a day for a couple days and doing that I would think to myself is this good as is or could it use something else? That led me to add 2 other flavors. Vape again for a couple days. Today I’ll be adding some Anise. Now I can’t say if this is a skill or not - to me it just seems like my normal, haphazard approach to creation. But it works for me. The point is, every recipe should start as an idea, and many with only 2-3 flavors that are the starting point to the final recipe. You can do it!
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Thank you so much for reminding us of the PDF link you posted…I was unable to download it before when you first linked it because I needed a new computer and then I totally forgot about it, but I just downloaded it and I look forward to reading it! Thanks a bunch for sharing this wonderful piece of work!
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I feel this needs more emphasis…
There ya go. 
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Lol. Thank you.
I would have given up a couple months ago if I wasn’t honestly enjoying learning the majority of the SA flavors… I was trying to think forward for a bit to get my mind out of the temporary doldrums (created by my inadvertently self-inflicted mistake) that are trying to squash my “happy factor”.
Also, I should have said above that I “completely agree” that it’s necessary, not so much that I hate doing it! It only became “evil” when I made a poor (uninformed) decision testing too many in the same category, at the same time. Live and learn!
If nothing else, hopefully someone else doesn’t have to share my experience (the temporary frustration) by having read this thread!!
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Ok @Sprkslfly, I happen to be working on a complex recipe at the moment. It’s not public yet but I will share it here on your thread even thought it’s a tad bit more than “slightly complex.” I tweaked this one yesterday and re-edited it today and mixed it. I am letting it sit for a few days and I’m hoping it ends up being what I’ve been chasing.
All mixers keep in mind that this is still a tester and I only put this up for observation only at this time. It probably is good as is but I will not know if this is final till I try it out in a few days.
AP, Tiramisu, Jamaica Rum, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Milk Chocolate,Chocolate Malt, Caramel and Cocoa are in this recipe for all of the Chocolate notes. Chocolate Fudge Brownie and AP were put in for texture and flavor, the rest of just the Chocolate flavors are based on my Chocolate Liquor base I developed last year. I pulled this project back out over the summer, my break from frustration was over so I hope it stays over. Fingers crossed…
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17 flavors. That’s almost GOT to be a record! Lol
That screenshot is the exception to the rule though IMO. It shows in part, what I’m asking about, and then, in other ways, shows several of what strike me as “full flavor levels” (at least from what my smidgen of experience with FA leads me to think), some give “indication of the cut-down percentage” I referred to above (TFA/Cap/FW), but overall, this recipe in particular doesn’t share the ideal example of why I asked. This just looks more like a master at work in the lab (though a bit hopped up on sugar. I keed, I keed! Seriously, 17?? o.0 -I’d get arrested just trying to look over the fence into your world! LMAO)
Perhaps your “exception to the rule” was what you were trying to point out? Or, perhaps it was just to illustrate the point that "hope is not lost for having a complex recipe, while maintaining the 80% thing…
/I could use a little more voltage for the old Lightbulb here bud! lol
There have been more than a few recipes I’ve seen that were like 2/2/1.5/1/2% on things that would be (in my SA) range of anywhere from 4-8% in the majority of others (having already discounted the folks that use 12-15% SA’s as being inappropriate for me) hence why I asked.
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Nope. I don’t know if this is the record, though…
The 18
| Ingredient | % |
|---|---|
| Bavarian Cream (TPA) | 1.5 |
| Biscuit (INAWERA) | 1 |
| Catalan Cream (FA) | 1 |
| Cheesecake (LA) | 1.2 |
| Coconut Milk (LB) | 2 |
| Cookie (Biscotto) (FA) | 2 |
| Cream Cheese Icing (LA) | 0.8 |
| Cream Fresh (FA) | 0.8 |
| Cream Whipped (FA) | 1 |
| Creme Brulee (INAWERA) | 1 |
| Custard (FA) | 0.5 |
| Italian Cream (Hangsen) | 0.8 |
| Meringue (FA) | 0.5 |
| Nugat (INAWERA) | 1.5 |
| Sweet Cream (CAP) | 0.6 |
| Vanilla Custard (Flavorah) | 1.5 |
| Vanilla Custard v1 (CAP) | 1 |
| Vienna Cream (FA) | 1.5 |
Flavor total: 20.2%
Remember to rate it at e-liquid-recipes.com!
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Lol, the record for the biggest faux recipe maybe I can’t take the record for the biggest recipe on that one haha
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Seriously… WTF? I’d have to take 3 or 4 breaks while mixing a single bottle. 