Advice required - How do I "round" my juice off a bit smoother?

[Dela Rey Steyn]

Hi fellow DIY'ers, Mixologists and Guru's!

So, the DIY bug has bit me and I went ahead and ordered all the necessities, Concentrates, base liquids, scale, etc. I looked around for recipes that looked like profiles that I would like, did some reading up and always check the ratings given to the recipes. Every single one I've mixed up so far feels like its not "rounded" off like a bought juice. I'm not sure how to describe it in another way, It feels like each puff I take has flavour, but as soon as it subsides, I get this almost tasteless mouth feel like vaping a clear 70/30VG/PG mix. What am I doing wrong? What can I add? I've had the same with 2 local one shots as well.

 

[StompieZA]

Hi fellow DIY'ers, Mixologists and Guru's!

So, the DIY bug has bit me and I went ahead and ordered all the necessities, Concentrates, base liquids, scale, etc. I looked around for recipes that looked like profiles that I would like, did some reading up and always check the ratings given to the recipes. Every single one I've mixed up so far feels like its not "rounded" off like a bought juice. I'm not sure how to describe it in another way, It feels like each puff I take has flavour, but as soon as it subsides, I get this almost tasteless mouth feel like vaping a clear 70/30VG/PG mix. What am I doing wrong? What can I add? I've had the same with 2 local one shots as well.

TBH i always thought you DIYed? weird

How long did you steep the mixes for? and what sort of profiles are you mixing.

Perhaps post the recipes as well just for interest sake.

 

[Speedy_11]

can you send us the recipes you used as I can relate but i know my issue lol (too much concentrates lol) but I've learned now with time you will get the hang of it an with constant testing and playing around you will get thier.on my end i look at recipes online but i want to create my own so from February I've been testing flavours and this week i finalised my own recipe and made my 1st 60 ml lol (all the testing was 10 ml and 30 ml) if you want a recipe i found was well-balanced use @StompieZA mangtio - https://e-liquid-recipes.com/recipe/3012039/Mangtrio ive made my adjustments to suit my likes but give it a go

 

[Dela Rey Steyn]

Recipe's I've tried so far:

Just Cheesecake
TFA 10% Cheesecake (Graham Crust)
TFA 5% Bavarian Cream
CAP 3% Sweet Cream (Alisa used FW Sweet Cream)
TFA 5% Vanilla Swirl 1.
CAP 1% French Vanilla (V1) (Alisa used TFA French Vanilla)

Creme Brulee Cheesecake
INW 2% ( ) Creme Brulee
INW 3% ( ) Custard
INW 1% ( ) Shisha Vanilla
INW 3% ( ) Yes, We Cheesecake

Mustard milk
TFA 6% Strawberry
TFA 8% Vanilla bean Ice Cream

Strawberry Cheesecake
TFA 9% Strawberry Ripe (Tfa) :
TFA 5% Cheesecake - Graham Crust (Tfa):

Strawberry Dragon Fruit
INW 5.5% Dragon Fruit
CAP 4.25% Sweet Strawberry
TFA 1% Koolada







these are just a few, I'm sitting with about 20+ 30ml's of mixed juice and I've not had one that I'm happy with so far

 

[Dela Rey Steyn]

TBH i always thought you DIYed? weird

How long did you steep the mixes for? and what sort of profiles are you mixing.

Perhaps post the recipes as well just for interest sake.

Diy'ing 2 months' going on 3
Always steep the recommended times, I give each a toot at 1 week intervals if the RST is more than 1 week
Different profiles, but mostly dessert and tobacco profiles, only have about 4 or 5 fruity Ice mixes I've tried

 

[StompieZA]

That is weird, Dont see anything wrong with these specific recipes per se.

• Always remember that steeping plays the biggest roll in mixing juice, A juice bought from a shop was mixed and steeped for around 4 weeks then is shipped to the shops and probably stands on the selves and steep for weeks before its bought so thats one main reason and steeping does improve the flavor you are lacking.
• Perhaps you have vapers tounge after mixing so many juices with different profiles (Not impossible i would say)
• Are you getting the same muting effect (Lets call it that if i understand you correctly) on different other tanks, RDA?

I remember some years back when i just started DIYing having the same problem you are having and i realized that not all highly rated recipes are THAT awesome as the hype they are made from. To this day i still mix juices thats got 5 stars and 100's of comments only to be very disappointing even after steeping....Buttermilk Pie was one of them.

How long have you been steeping the juices? have you steeped them longer than 2 weeks and they still have the same issue of flavor fading after the first initial puffs?

one last tip....always remember that with DIY, increasing the % of a flavor in a recipe will not in most cases increase the flavor but rather mute the flavor and other flavors. Less is more trust me. I rarely mix recipes with flavor % thats higher than 3% or max 4% and i get loads of flavor. Looking at the recipes above, most of these are very high % recipes.

 

[StompieZA]

Here is two of my own recipes, see the % in them and i have only received great feedback on the forum after people have mixed them as well as e-liquid.com

PMS


Frozen Berry - One of my current ADVs


Mangtrio - My mango ADV


Perhaps give them a go to compare?

 

[Dela Rey Steyn]

Here is two of my own recipes, see the % in them and i have only received great feedback on the forum after people have mixed them as well as e-liquid.com

PMS
View attachment 170389

Frozen Berry - One of my current ADVs
View attachment 170390

Mangtrio - My mango ADV
View attachment 170391

Perhaps give them a go to compare?

Will have to put in an order for some Concentrates (Rule Number 1, FML) but will give them a go, Recommended Steeping times?

 

[StompieZA]

Will have to put in an order for some Concentrates (Rule Number 1, FML) but will give them a go, Recommended Steeping times?

believe it or not, but they are SNV approved but after 3 days its full speed ahead!

 

[zadiac]

Plain cream usually rounds it off quite good, but upping the sweet cream can also work with some juices. With desserts vanilla bean ice cream also works, but not with all. You'll have to "trial and error".

 

[Wimmas]

I've been vaping for two years after ten years of smoking. Shortly after I started vaping, I got into DIY because I thought I would save money and could easily make juice I would like. I spent thousands of rands on concentrates and the rest. After all that money, I had a handful of recipes that I truly enjoyed and made 500ml's+ of. I spent many hours browsing, testing, mixing etc.....Hundreds of bottles!

Sadly I faced the same dilemma as you are in - making highly rated juices and just not getting a satisfactory experience from it. Needless to say, now I vape 90% commercial juice. I have an RDA that I take with me to vape shops, then test juices and what I like, I buy.

I am not against DIY....It works for many, and many claim that it's the next best thing, but for me the cons outweigh the benefits! I now rather spend the money on commercial juice.

Not what you wanted to hear, but it's just my 5c and I know many will go against what I am saying!

 

[Silver]

Nice thread @Dela Rey Steyn

Have enjoyed reading the responses from everyone

I have also tried DIY - not much - but have mixed about 8 or 10 recipes - just didnt have the time. I found most of them here on the forum and they were highly regarded. Most of them were not to my liking and one or two were really bad. For example, I could not stand Mustard Milk. I thought there was something wrong but I guess I just didnt like the outcome.

I still keep noting recipes I would like to try some day - and I will - when I get more time. It is so fascinating and I know I will enjoy it when I crack a few juices that I really like.

One thing's for sure, my DIY experience has given me a lot more respect for the experienced DIYers and the juicemakers.

 

[RainstormZA]

Plain cream usually rounds it off quite good, but upping the sweet cream can also work with some juices. With desserts vanilla bean ice cream also works, but not with all. You'll have to "trial and error".

What he said.

I found that if I omitted sweet cream from my strawberry mix and added super sweet plus ws23, it actually tasted like fresh cold strawberries which was what I was after.

Sometimes a certain flavour makes or breaks a recipe.

 

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

@Dela Rey Steyn .

I agree with @Stompie where he says high percentages of flavours often mute the taste.

Take a look at the Just cheesecake recipe as an example. The average percentage use is as follows ......in bold :

Just Cheesecake
TFA 10% Cheesecake (Graham Crust) 2.55%
TFA 5% Bavarian Cream 2.20%
CAP 3% Sweet Cream 1.68%
TFA 5% Vanilla Swirl 1. 2.01%
CAP 1% French Vanilla (V1) 2.1%

The recipe dates back to 2015 when percentages were usually higher, but even with this in mind, they are very high.

Maybe some of our other experts can help us out here. @RichJB , @Andre , @Rude Rudi , @Dietz .

I must say that I agree with what you guys have said about the lack of taste of some DIY recipes, even some highly recommended ones. Usually, commercial juices have higher percentages of sweetener which may account for some of the lack of "flavour".

I have recently mixed four of @Rude Rudi 's recipes and I must say that they all have great flavour.

 

[RichJB]

I think the use of sweetener plays a role. It's the same reason you won't get the same taste from a home-cooked burger that you do from a Big Mac. You are not adding the same additives to it that McDonald's do.

Generally, I find commercial juice to be too sweet. I have some commercial juices which I vape but I can't vape them for too long as they are too rich. The thing is that your palate gets used to it very quickly too. It's the same as nic. If you vape 8mg, cutting to 4mg will feel unsatisfying until you adjust. Get used to vaping 4mg then up it to 8mg again and hoo boy, it hits hard. Now I vape 1mg. If I had to vape the 18mg juices that some can't do without, they'd have to hospitalise me.

I have trained my body for lower nic consumption, and my palate to DIY juices. I find that, over time, the amount of concentrate I use dwindles more and more. I can't remember when I last mixed up my own recipes with more than 10% total flavour. And I now rarely use sweetener or coolant at all. Compare that to many commercial juices which hit hard - high flavour, high sweetener, tons of brain freeze - and my DIY mixes will seem under-powered. But it's what I'm used to so it's 'normal'.

For me, it comes down to natural caution. I want to reduce my dependence on nic in case I need to quit altogether for whatever reason. And then we also know that flavours and sucralose have health implications. So using less of them seems prudent.

It's also a case of finessing the mixing. If I can't taste a juice unless it's 20% total flavour with 3% sucralose and WS-23, I'm not really in a position to flavour test. The super-tasters like Jenn Jarvis, whose mixes are often under 2% total flavour, can pick out the barest hint of some accent note like anise in a mix with six or seven different flavours happening. I'm not anywhere close to that but it's a long process of training. The less you bombard your palate, and the more you have to search for the flavour, the more acute it becomes. There are certain foods that a wine taster (for eg) can't even eat prior to a tasting because the flavour residue will skew their perception of the wine flavour.

But the beauty of vaping is that it accommodates all preferences. If vaping DIY doesn't do it for your palate, vape commercial. If vaping 5mg is like fresh air to you, vape 12mg. If 20W doesn't give you enough vapour heat and clouds, bump it up to 100W. It's your experience and your enjoyment, do what works for you.

 

[Rude Rudi]

I think the use of sweetener plays a role. It's the same reason you won't get the same taste from a home-cooked burger that you do from a Big Mac. You are not adding the same additives to it that McDonald's do.

Generally, I find commercial juice to be too sweet. I have some commercial juices which I vape but I can't vape them for too long as they are too rich. The thing is that your palate gets used to it very quickly too. It's the same as nic. If you vape 8mg, cutting to 4mg will feel unsatisfying until you adjust. Get used to vaping 4mg then up it to 8mg again and hoo boy, it hits hard. Now I vape 1mg. If I had to vape the 18mg juices that some can't do without, they'd have to hospitalise me.

I have trained my body for lower nic consumption, and my palate to DIY juices. I find that, over time, the amount of concentrate I use dwindles more and more. I can't remember when I last mixed up my own recipes with more than 10% total flavour. And I now rarely use sweetener or coolant at all. Compare that to many commercial juices which hit hard - high flavour, high sweetener, tons of brain freeze - and my DIY mixes will seem under-powered. But it's what I'm used to so it's 'normal'.

For me, it comes down to natural caution. I want to reduce my dependence on nic in case I need to quit altogether for whatever reason. And then we also know that flavours and sucralose have health implications. So using less of them seems prudent.

It's also a case of finessing the mixing. If I can't taste a juice unless it's 20% total flavour with 3% sucralose and WS-23, I'm not really in a position to flavour test. The super-tasters like Jenn Jarvis, whose mixes are often under 2% total flavour, can pick out the barest hint of some accent note like anise in a mix with six or seven different flavours happening. I'm not anywhere close to that but it's a long process of training. The less you bombard your palate, and the more you have to search for the flavour, the more acute it becomes. There are certain foods that a wine taster (for eg) can't even eat prior to a tasting because the flavour residue will skew their perception of the wine flavour.

But the beauty of vaping is that it accommodates all preferences. If vaping DIY doesn't do it for your palate, vape commercial. If vaping 5mg is like fresh air to you, vape 12mg. If 20W doesn't give you enough vapour heat and clouds, bump it up to 100W. It's your experience and your enjoyment, do what works for you.

What he said...

 

[Resistance]

try one diy mix with 10-20% more dilutant.Vg/pg.

 

[Resistance]

The other thing I do.
I will add a few drops of apple,pear or any other juice concentrate.sometimes two drops of menthol. It doesn't chnage the flavour but helps round it off a bit more.