What total flavor % is enuff?

Total flavor percentage is never really a concern for me, as long as the end result is delicious lol. Sometimes I feel like my taste buds are screwy, there are some flavors, like rf sc cookies and cream, that lots of people use at 2.5-3%, but I can vape it solo at 1.5%, and then there are flavors like fw blueberry that I see most people use at 4% or less in recipes but I can barely taste it below 6-8%. I like finished juice to be rich with flavor, where it lingers in your mouth after the exhale, which probably explains my love for custards, the flavor is heavy and rich. I have read every thread on mf flavors on this forum, and I find them fascinating, but I’m curious about what @anon28032772 suggested, that the actual flavor molecule % is the same in the end recipe, but fw or tfa is more diluted than mf or inw. Either way, my goal is a flavor saturated vape and I have recipes that achieve that at 3% total flavor, and some that take 16-20% total flavor to achieve the same thing, I just quit thinking about it a while ago lol.

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In a round about… I do not settle for any sort of rate of total flavoring. I do let things fall naturally according to my tongue and device I use.

I lean on this repeatedly: solo taste testing: from the lowest (1-2 bottle drops in 10ml) and then work up my drops… take a lot of notes on each flavor from where I first taste it… just a glimmer of taste, make a note on where and how much for that to happen. Next, I move up to where I can fully taste it, make yet another note where. Last, I will look at my lowest and where I can taste it, and bump it up even higher, and yes… take a note there, on taste texture and my thoughts on the total flavor… This is how I can tell in a recipe, if there is a certain flavor going “wonky” and can adjust it easily. All it takes is 1 drop to change a flavor profile.

My site is full of my notes… some do need updating, as devices and body/tastes change… I have not had the time to update. I might have skipped a few flavors. I also go back and spot check certain flavors or all of them, every so often.

This is how I create my recipes, by using my own tongue, notes and thoughts. I won’t say this is what we all are supposed to be doing, but it is how I teach others to mix. This does work for any flavor manufacture, not just for Flavorah.

A dear friend of mine did a series of videos, using flavorah and here are the links:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Albeit, I do not use a frother, stirrer or much of anything else… Christian did take me serious and it shows in the vids he has done… Hope you all have fun watching them. Leave a comment or like if you guys would be so kind. :slight_smile: I would appreciate that.

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I really liked this series and think they’re full of useful information. The only thing is that this technique only works for flavors that have are pretty much shake and vape certified. How do you go about this with upsteepers like medecin flower for example?
You’ll need a lot of different bottles (each with a different amount of drops) and a lot of time to get a fairly good idea of what the flavors are like. Or if there are any other techniques you guys use, I’d be happy to hear about them.

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I find myself rather attracted to low percentage recipes and often cut percentages heavily.
Take Catalan Cream (FA), I can taste it a lot more with my equipment under 1% than at the commonly seen 1.5/2%
Amusingly enough, the only time I felt the caramel part of it clearly was at 0.2% in the Polar Bear Nutz recipe I whip out whenever I want to talk about small percentages ( not mine, and probably the better for it)

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Christian did an excellent job! :slight_smile:

However, as you saw in the vids, flv doesn’t really need a long steep, by day 3-5, they are pretty much what I term “locked in” and wont change much after that time period. Even the custards and tobaccos.

I can not answer on MF or other concentrates, altho I do use ultras from my lab where I work and have the same results.

I have a set of glass 10ml bottles I use, I sterilize them a lot. I have put the time in with flavorah, because to me, it is worth it. Your flavors should be an investment, something to be proud of and you should be able to enjoy good tastes. What I have shared here is the only way I flavor test solo flavorings for recipes.

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You’ve got a point there! Sooner or later we’ll all end up using “other” manufacturers rather than TPA CAP FW and the like… because of truer taste…
But on average the older recipes (including my own, maybe it was just trendy) were on the 17/20% range, then it went to the 15/17% then on the 12/8%, where I’m now with the flavours I got.
But using organics, SC’s, FLV and the like, the (subjective) rules we (I) got used to, just go down the drain and have to start all over again…
Whilst a recipe made with TPA Cap and the like, can be understood and modified, a recipe with 2% just can’t be judged or modified.
That leads us to the SC or extracts brand talk… invest your money on a single brand and build recipes with just that one and manufacturers that offer that kind of quality?
I guess our goal is to have the best vaping experience no matter the percentage or the brand.
A further food for thought is : who is going to use it? Mixing for family and friends I have to think at the “End User” :rofl:
The way a recipe tastes on a genesis/mesh setup it’s not the same on my wife’s Nautilus or my son’s latest gimmick like Nefarius or Entheon… so it gets sooooo subjective…

Luckily my scale is 0.001

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@Iv3shf yes… learning how to taste solos, no matter the brand… you will find you do correct those bits of over flavoring. Knowing where you like a solo flavor, makes for a better recipe. It isn’t all about how low or high one can go. I know 5 yrs ago, 35% was not uncommon.

As time goes on, remember too, 2 years makes a huge difference. I wonder for our future tho, with the regs it will make it harder for newer flavor companies to exist… maybe. We just don’t know yet. All flavor manufactures do have the list of “abc” organizations to answer to.

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In all honesty, I’m interested cause of the totals you actually can save, money wise. Heck, flv seemed expencive, but when you need alot less in a mix to achieve the same or even better results. I’ll happily adapt. But I will probably never stop using the regular brands, cause there are recipes even in the 20%+, that still taste amazing. Then again, taste is, as pointed out, very subjective.

Its really not about how much you use, as long as you are happy with the % and the end result, and the cost of it :smiley:

Most of us probably started out vaping cause tobacco did nothing but harm us… Now look at us debate % use, on this level. I love it, but I do understand how some just want a good vape, without the extra hassle of being a hobby chemist.

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This right here :wink: :hibiscus:

With the ultras, it’s just as simple to use drops with weight. We all started way back when trying to figure out how to make juice, using drops, even when bottles had different sized tips and drop amounts. It was why most were encourages to use percentages until it was a standard “loose” measurement. It seems we fall back into time by drops to move forward with ultras… I find the biggest issue is just plain over thinking, but that is just me and I do laugh about it! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I find that all my droppers are between 4 and 6 drops per 1% in weight in 10ml. Settling for 5, 20% error is not great but would work ok. Unless you get a bad drop…
When mixing by weight I use this fact to get close enough to the weight without waiting for the the scales to catch up. Saves some time.

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Ya really need to count by weight to see how many drops you are getting into a ml before assigning a % amount.
Even one drop can toss your recipe off… 99.9% of the time I see people using the elr standard of 35 drops per ml… and yeah, it can and will make a difference in your mixing. :slight_smile:

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I am not being very clear.
Say, I need to weigh 200mg of flavour: I will drop 8 drops without waiting for the scales to settle, look at the achieved weight and correct accordingly, using the scales.
I wonder which droppers are/were 35 drops per mL, I have yet to encounter one. Different times maybe.

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If you remember: 1ml = 1g
Place container on scale, using what ever dropper/nipple cap you have, count drops till it reads 1g.

I only function after coffee #2. :slight_smile:

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This was posted on a facebook group i am in and is quite a good read and think it fits in this thread. @TamVapes posted it thanks tammy

This is some great information from a mixer that influenced me a great deal when I started, Joe Melvin, please welcome him to the group.

Flavor range vs personal tastes
By: Joe Melvin a.k.a. Boogenshizzle

The goal of this mission is to understand how flavoring percents work. Sure, many people will scream, “personal taste!”, and that’s fine to a point. But here we are going to go deeper. I see people all the time asking, “I used 20% flavoring! Why can’t I taste my juice?” I guess I will start with a sticky I made for groups for a certain question and we will break it down from there.

“You have to understand your flavors and what they will do with time. Find the high and low of each flavor and use it accordingly. This way one flavor will not overpower another. You will find the perfect harmony. I have recipes with 1.5% total flavoring and full of flavor and recipes upwards of 20%. If you focus on the flavoring themselves and not total percent of flavoring, you will find you use less and have better juice.”

So what does this mean? Is this just babble? The rantings of a mad scientist gone awry? Who the heck does this guy think he is? I’ll elaborate with specific flavorings to give you a good idea of what is going on. I’ll use a few examples and perhaps that will give you an idea that once you are out of what I like to call the “flavor range,” you are past personal taste.

What is personal taste? Personal taste is that you may like kiwi with your coffee vape. Perhaps you like strawberry fromunda cheese. Heck you might even like TFA Guava Cheesecake Pizza. I know some people that like capella bacon. That’s personal taste.

What personal taste is NOT is the flavor range. Each flavoring performs a certain chemical reaction at each percent. You will learn to find the minimum and maximum of each flavoring and use it according to what it does at every percent to achieve the effect you want. But you will stay in the FLAVOR RANGE to accomplish that goal.

Example 1: Flavour Art Vienna Cream: This is one of my favorite creams and is probably the most versatile in my collection. I use this in between .4% and 2% MAXIMUM in a mix as it seems to be the “flavor range” for this flavor. Anything above that and I’m past personal taste and into the either muting other flavors range or losing the intended effect of the cream… I.e… rather pointless…

Fa Vienna Cream .4%: Really gives a nice texture to the juice. A rich creamy texture, similar to a heavy marshmallow. The catch is, it takes 2 –3 weeks for the texture to set. You barely taste it at first but it steeps very nice.

Fa Vienna Cream 1-1.3% Provides a nice smoothness to the fruits. Heavy marshmallow, rich creamy off the bat but steeps into a nice smooth note to edge off certain harsh fruits. While you can taste the texture and flavor off the bat, it usually ends up velvety with less fluffy texture.

Fa Vienna Cream 1.3-2%, I usually get approximately the same as before and this is usually my mixing limit. Once the flavor is above 2% in a mix, it simply seems to “mute itself” over time. So sure, it’s great for shake and vape but chemistry says its too high and will mute other flavors unless you use the high range of those flavors too and even then who knows. So you are out of the “flavor range” and past personal taste. You are into chemistry.

Example 2: I feel that the Capella strawberry sweet is best used around 2-4%. If you’re going to use a raspberry booster anyway, why are you at 8%? For a flavor that is that strong, you are way out of the flavor range. Once again, it is put in so strong so one can taste it off the bat. But when it steeps, it mutes itself. The problem is you are using a “pop” strawberry for a full strawberry. If you use a ripe strawberry or a berry with a meaty texture, and add 2-4% capella strawberry sweet to make the other strawberry pop, you will find it stays, and stays in the flavor range.

Example 3: Inawera Biscuit: Tastes like a rich buttery American biscuit. Flavor Range: .4%-2% MAX

INW Biscuit: .4%-.8% provides a nice layery texture to many bakery items. Think the layers on a biscuit. Adding a little of that can really accent cakes, cookies, etc.

INW Biscuit: .8-1.8% this is the sweet spot for this flavor. This will provide you a GREAT biscuit with a nice layered biscuit flavor with a hint of butter. Many mixers above 1.4 will taste a chemical back note that is also found in grahamcracker flavoring. While this taste reducess a little after a steep, I can still taste it.

So it’s MAX is 2 and that’s mixed with a heavy cookie to overpower the chemical back note. Otherwise you WILL taste it. Anything above that… is not personal taste… it’s a waste and you are out of the flavor range.

Example 4: Flavour Art Blackberry: .01-.1% yes that’s point 01- point 1.

This is one of the strongest flavor I’ve ever used. At one drop per 30 mils, (.08%), it imparts a nice rich blackberry that isn’t too sweet. Anything above .1 and you get straight perfume. So your personal taste here is either blackberry… or perfume… either way you would use the flavor according to the flavor range.

So do yourself a favor. Find the high and low of each flavor and use that TO YOUR PERSONAL TASTE. Remember, each flavor can impart a different texture and or taste at a different percent, but there always is a maximum that should be used before it either takes over, “why don’t I taste my high strawberry?”, or you begin to have unwanted results and not sure why. If you focus on the flavors themselves and let them steep, and not the end total flavoring percentage, you will find you use less flavoring and have better juice.

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This is a pretty good read, but nothing groundbreaking. IMO most mixers that’s been mixing for a year or so learn real fast that there’s min/max usage % to most flavors. I think a lot of mixers gauge this with their SFTs.

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Yer it is for beginners

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Actually it’s about having a process and adjusting it when needed. For MF this is how I do it.

. This saves space and time. If you tag me in another thread I can give some ideas for saving time with MF.

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This is a fascinating read and contradicts what I have always thought. You see I have always felt that individual palates would experience the thresholds differently and that if 2 or more people wanted to they could calibrate their palates through using a thorough process to identify where they are. In doing so a more accurate dialog could be developed.

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I’m feeling like nauseous are something, my virtigo is starting to act up, I don’t know what the hell is going on.

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