Ultrasonic steeping.. Ok?

[ethan_diy]

Hello all good to be here.
Was wondering if ultrasonic steeping can be detrimental to the e liquid.
I ultrasonic steeped one of the highly rated recipes from here with a slight change to the recipe (switched one brand of cheesecake to a different brand) after steeping for about 2 hours overall, at first it came out tasting great but the day after it tasted like ****, it Had a sort of plastic aftertaste. I did let the recipe breath before steeping. I dont know but maybe it just needs more steeping or is it just the method used that ruined it? By the way the the recipe was a cheesecake custard just incase it was important to mention that.
Would highly appreciate any knowledge or experience any one might be able to offer.
Thank you.

[adary]

Hey man. I remember there being quite a few threads that debate accelerated steeping

You should take a look at them

Steeping in a sous vide?

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has tried steeping their e-liquid in a sous vide machine. The temperature could be controlled for a long period of time. ( I do beef ribs for 72hours). I also figure this would be the best way to make medicinal flower extracts. Like coffee, or spices. I’m new at this, and having a lot of fun, any advice would be appreciated.

Sous Vide Steeping

I’m sorry for bringing this topic up again, but I think this topic has not yet been fully explored A few months ago, I started making my own e-liquids because of economy issues. But some friends started buying from me and it turned out to be a deal. Today, i´m selling the juices in some stores in my city and once again I entered the dilemma of Fast Steeping. I always steeped my juice with the time in the dark room, but now I’m running some tests with my own e-liquids to analyze if there are ch…

Magnetic stirring for the unfamiliar

Now this makes sense. I thought you were just deranged Bingo! Let’s see what happens if… I’m going to try something nuts. Turn this on it’s head. Add ingredients leaving 10 ml headspace in the bottle. 1/2 hr mag stir low speed. Pre blend 1 min homogenize. Blend 1/2 hr ultrasound recover 3 hr souse vide @ 40c. Steep with heat. If it turns out to be drano I loose five bucks. I’ll whine about that in another thread.

Ultrasonic cleaners for steeping. Do you really need a heated one?

So I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer wait 3 weeks to steep custards. Is a heated one essential? Does anyone have any success with a non heated one? I was thinking maybe crock pot for a hour and then ultrasonic for 2 hours after. Would this work? Was thinking of getting the JPL 7000 as on a budget. Cheers

Best Steeping Using Ultrasonic Cleaner

This is the best Tutorial Video to show how Steeping E-juice happens, how to steep your own E-liquid easily.

I’m sure you can find a bunch more.

And if you are new here, welcome

[eStorm]

Opinions differ when it comes to speed steep and the very different methods applied.

Some people have good experience with method a, others with b, next with c and then there’s d that it didn’t work at all, not to forget group f that hates it all together lol.

So based on my experience, yes you can accelerate the process but in my opinion there’s unfortunately some guidelines to follow, for “good” results.

1. don’t use plastic bottles of any kind. Especially cheaper bottles will transfer the plastic into your juices, probably why it tastes like that.

2. you have to watch your temperature like a hawk. If your uc has a separate heating option, then that what you want and either dial in the temperature (104F max, lower is much better) or don’t use the heat function at all! Because it can be done with Just tap water, if the temp is ok.

3. 2 hrs won’t cut it for a heavy custard/bakery mix. Theoretically 2 hrs yield 1 week. I don’t think it’s correct based on my experience, most juices had to run at least 4 hrs min but mostly more, to even see a difference. If you just want to get it going before steeping it in a dark place, 30 mins would be enough.

4. I’ve mentioned this before, I did notice a much less shelf life of juices steeped that way. Some as quick as 24 hrs after, others 2 weeks after, where they either faded completely or tastes off in comparison to my other methods, including just ageing.

read the topics above, maybe you can find some better help or based on more scientific results, since mine are only personal.

With that said so, before I started using a stirrer, I would speed steep in uc or crock pot for samples I was working on. But I never would steep bigger batches or anything in it because of the issues listed above.

[SessionDrummer]

@eStorm

I’ve mentioned this before, I did notice a much less shelf life of juices steeped that way. Some as quick as 24 hrs after, others 2 weeks after, where they either faded completely or tastes off in comparison to my other methods, including just ageing.

@eStorm Were you emulsifying or ultrasonic’ing them ?

[eStorm]

To that time just ultrasonic

[SessionDrummer]

I tried to find, but could not, an older few posts where I thought I remembered reading that over blending, or emulsifying led to muting of flavors. Don’t think it was ultrasonic, but your symptoms sounded familiar.

[eStorm]

No worries it’s not to say that I didn’t try that method too, as well as even looking further into that but I am no scientist or have a full lab lol.

But yeah I only noticed it with the ultrasonic. While emulsifying did lead to other interesting results, I personally didn’t get a full flavor fade after a settling timeway, neither muting. Still different taste in comparison.

[Chrispdx]

Could be any number of things. Ultimately, if you mixed a recpie using different ingredients your mileage may very. The cheese cake part could have caused the issue. It could be the breathing aspect…lettting out all the wonderful volatiles that give your juice flavor, to me that is scary. (Halloween pun).

For me personally I gave up speed steeping with heat long ago because for me I couldn’t be trusted to repliacate a mix every time. That is with 100% accuracy. For me, mixing and using time is my method and has be within reason repeatable. At this point I do look to methods that speed up the process or short cut a step.

[anon28032772]

A lot has been written about it and there’s a lot I don’t agree with too …

If you understand how ultrasonic cleaning works, you wouldn’t use this for steeping purposes. It creates microscopic cavity bubbles that “explode”, which is what creates the power to clean and clean in places where you otherwise can’t reach. This agitates your liquid and will only help escape all the volatile flavor molecules in your juice. It also means that any residue or loose particles in plastic bottles will be released in your juice (yummy).

Heat can have a bit of a similar effect, so I cannot recommend that either.

Breathing… well, why would you spend a fortune on concentrates to let them all evaporate? Isn’t it wiser to just keep the bottle closed and keep those flavor molecules in your juice / container? When you’re bathing a juice for a quick steep… doesn’t that make your house smell so good? All those molucules that you can smell, they’re not in your juice anymore.

Learn to plan, make your juices plenty time in advance so they can properly steep / age like a good wine.
There are recipes that are good as shake and vapes and we have several threads dedicated to it, e.g.

Shake and vape recipes

I have been searching the entire web for a great shake and vape recipe. I finally found it here. It’s named cereal killer. Thank goodness I wrote down the recipe because I can’t find it again. The person who crafted this absolutely delicious recipe, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I made one 15ml bottle gone in an hour. Then Made one more 15ml and three 30ml bottles to vape on while waiting for my more complicated recipes to steep. I would love to see more shake and vape recipes here on this site. They are…

Keep those handy for when you run out of juice and need to let your other juices steep.

For everything I’ve just said, there will probably be a whole line of people waiting to disagree with me… it’s apparently a subjective topic, different people and different experiences.

Generally speaking everybody will agree however that time is still the best steeping method. What people agree less about is whether speed steeping methods are acceptable or not. If you’re interested, try them and if they fail, you’ve learned your lesson and if not, you’re a happy camper.

[SessionDrummer]

@anon28032772

For everything I’ve just said, there will probably be a whole line of people waiting to disagree with me… i

The science is sound. If you can smell it, it’s no LONGER in the bottle. Easy peasy.

[Mark_Turner]

I will simply say this. Slower Cooker, Hot Bath, Magnetic Stirrer & Ultrasonic Cleaners do blend the composition of Eliquids. .
But, Because the components we use in making Eliquids are comprised of large & small particles. Including a wide variety of flavor esters. (Some of which are quite light and can be effected negatively by heat). Your end product will need to homogenize. Homogenization or Maturation is the process that allows a mixture of two or more ingredients to achieve the same molecular structure throughout and become emulsified. This is achieved with time as the elements are breaking down in the Eliquid. Allowing it to transpose into a state consisting of similar sized particles that are distributed uniformly throughout the entirety of the Eliquid. Unless you have a lab with an extruder. You can not circumvent the factor of time.

[SessionDrummer]

@Mark_Turner

[anon44944642]

I am not calling anyone right or wrong. In the end, you do what works for you. I’ve tried heat and I’ve tried USC. I haven’t done high level stuff like homogenizing and stirring with lab gear, but for all the different ways I’ve tried, the only thing that really does work properly for me is good old shelf time. For large quantity mixers I definitely understand why speed steeping is valuable, but for me I just make sure I have enough juices on the shelf that I don’t run out while more are steeping in the background. The USC is great for cleaning my atty’s though.

[Tworrs]

For me, planning and time are what work.