NEWBIE TRYING TO MIX...PLEASE HELP!!

[AJsmit]

Hi All

I am very new to all of this and I have been trying to mix my own juice with mixed results. Here is the latest recipe that I tried. The flavor % seems high. I sub-ohm 9mg and I am not completely sure what that means but the place where I purchased the flavor suggested I bump up the % to about 22-24% (coming from about 12% and it was vile). I am just not getting any flavoring and I steeped it for about 2 weeks. So either the % is to high and mutes the flavor or too low? Which I doubt?

Your help will be greatly appreciated!!

9mg target
36mg (PG base)
Went for 50/50 PG/VG

 

[RichJB]

Smooth at 2% will tend to mute things, yes. Rather use a recipe by a known mixer, and which is from the last three years or so. 10% coffee, 5% Bav and 2% Smooth sounds like an ELR recipe from 2014, when most people were super-ohming at 11 Watts. It won't work well in today's sub-ohm gear.

I wouldn't use Smooth at all, there is no call for it in a simple coffee and cream recipe. Or anything else, really. It's one of those additives that sounds good in theory but only does bad things.

 

[rogue zombie]

Smooth at 2% will tend to mute things, yes. Rather use a recipe by a known mixer, and which is from the last three years or so. 10% coffee, 5% Bav and 2% Smooth sounds like an ELR recipe from 2014, when most people were super-ohming at 11 Watts. It won't work well in today's sub-ohm gear.

I wouldn't use Smooth at all, there is no call for it in a simple coffee and cream recipe. Or anything else, really. It's one of those additives that sounds good in theory but only does bad things.

Agreed. Smooth is a flavour killer.

Use creams or marshmallows at lower percentage to smoothen a mix.

 

[rogue zombie]

Also, if you move the VG percentage to 60 or 70% it will smoothen out the mix anyway.

 

[Quintusson]

Also, Butterscotch is quite sweet on its own, so maybe lower your sweetener to about 0.5%, especially if you're using CAP Super Sweet. So based on this and the above feedback, maybe look at the following (not sure which coffee you're using so throwing a number here):
Coffee 8%
Bavarian Cream 2% (maybe 3%)
Butterscotch 3%
Sweetener 0.5%
(optional) Marshmallow 0.5%

@Hooked is quite the coffee fanatic and may be able to suggest a good recipe though.

 

[Hooked]

Also, Butterscotch is quite sweet on its own, so maybe lower your sweetener to about 0.5%, especially if you're using CAP Super Sweet. So based on this and the above feedback, maybe look at the following (not sure which coffee you're using so throwing a number here):
Coffee 8%
Bavarian Cream 2% (maybe 3%)
Butterscotch 3%
Sweetener 0.5%
(optional) Marshmallow 0.5%

@Hooked is quite the coffee fanatic and may be able to suggest a good recipe though.

Coffee fanatic I am; DIYer I'm not, but thanks for mentioning me anyway @ivc_mixer !

 

[AJsmit]

Agreed. Smooth is a flavour killer.

Use creams or marshmallows at lower percentage to smoothen a mix.

Thanks mate. How does the %'s look to you though?

 

[RichJB]

What brand of concentrates are you using?

 

[AJsmit]

What brand of concentrates are you using?

TFA

 

[RichJB]

OK, thanks. And it's your own recipe or one you found online? Either way, when working with a recipe that is untried or flavours you don't know well, it's a good idea to use alltheflavors.com as a reference. The ATF Flavor page on TFA Coffee informs that it is used in 36 recipes at an average of 2.7%. That is not to say that you should use it at 2.7% or that it won't work at other percentages. But when you are using it at 10%, almost four times the concentration that other mixers are using, it should raise some red flags that the flavour won't work optimally when it's so high.

Similarly, the ATF page on TFA Bav Cream lists average use at around 2.2%. At 5%, you're more than double the average. Again, going up to 5% isn't necessarily a fatal flaw but, unless it's done for a specific reason, it's likely to be less than optimal.

I don't know TFA Coffee but if I had to concoct a basic caramel-ish creamy coffee with the ingredients you're using, I'd probably shoot for:
TFA Coffee 3.5%
TFA Bavarian Cream 2%
TFA Butterscotch 2%
TFA Sweetener 1%. This is palate dependent. 2% would be too sickly sweet for me, especially with Bav and Butterscotch already in the mix. But 2% may well be fine for you.

The addition of Smooth to the recipe is an admission that the mix is too sharp, in the hope that Smooth will reduce the sharpness. To me, that's the long way around. The better option is to reduce the percentages.

The percentages I'm suggesting won't be spot on, I don't know the TFA Coffee top note so it's hard to guess. The final balance may need more or less coffee, more or less cream, more or less butterscotch. Or a different coffee, cream and/or butterscotch. But I think it will be closer to something that you can tweak to your palate than the recipe you have currently. My sense is that using TFA Coffee at 4x the average % is already breaking the recipe. Over-flavouring generally leads to either chemical sharpness or muting, neither of which is easy to solve. A bit of muting goes with the territory when using creams but it can be controlled by using only as much as it needs. In DIY, less is often more.

 

[Rude Rudi]

Whatever @RichJB said
.
However - may I caution that if this is your first mix, and coffee at that, PLEASE, for the love of (insert religious deity here) DO NOT USE TFA COFFEE!!
Coffee is extremely difficult to mix with purely because 90% of the concentrates, including TFA, are shite. They taste worse than ass and will put you off for life!!

I would suggest you get VT Arabica Coffee to start with at about 2%.

 

[AJsmit]

Thanks Bud, this is golden!! I suppose most go through a testing face where they have to learn the ins-and-outs.

Thanks for the great advise

 

[DougP]

TFA Coffee
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Don’t ever punish your palette like that

Or if you insist

Mix at 0.00000000001%

 

[rogue zombie]

Thanks mate. How does the %'s look to you though?

What others said

Just a note on Coffees though. I got a sample of CAP Cuppa Joe. I found it very "flat" on one dimensional.

I fixed it by adding notes of what you would expect in Coffee Beans - so I add a tiny bit of JF Chocolote and tiny bit of FW Pralines and Cream... and I got a pretty damn tasty Coffee in the end. Then I added creams and made a pretty fancy cafe latte type thing.

So they are difficult, as in there is not many good ones, but you can fix some. Unfortunately I dont think with TFA. I hated it and wouldn't know how to fix it.

 

[RichJB]

Caramel Cappuccino seems to be the only TFA coffee that people can stand. And even that gets a lot of flak. Apparently the trick is to use one drop for every 7.3 litres of juice. So it's economical, if nothing else.

 

[GSM500]

I am not one for coffee flavours myself but do make a recipe for a friend. Because of this I had a chat with a few pro mixers on Discord a few weeks back. Out of the TFA's, Caramel Cappuccino seems to be their best but doesn't really have much caramel. Flavour Art's Tiramisu was recommended as a good Coffee flavour and their Dark Bean Espresso is apparently very strong but fades quick on the steep.

Medicine Flower is supposed to be the best Coffee flavour available locally but comes at a very stiff price.

This is what I make for a friend.

 

[RenaldoRheeder]

@Andre introduced me to MF Coffee, and although expensive, is excellent and typically used at very low % ( I think 1% in the recipes that I mix). He recently suggested that VT Arabicca at 4% would be equivalent, but I have not found stock every time that I ordered.


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