An older, but good article by skiddlzninja here:
Steeping
This one comes up every day. Someone asks what the best way to steep is, or mentions that they will we speed steeping in a crock pot or some other medium. This is a multi-layer myth. There is no such thing as "speed steeping."† What happens to your juice during a "speed steep" is much like what happens to your wool sweater when "speed drying" instead of hanging it out to dry. You're diminishing your flavors; degrading them with the prolonged exposure to heat. Your flavors are made up of volatiles- chemicals that are already fairly unstable in a solution. By adding heat to these volatiles, you're causing them to change structure entirely. The recommended way to use heat while mixing is to just warm the bottle to about 90F to make the VG thinner and easier to mix. DO NOT KEEP THE BOTTLE WARMER THAN ROOM TEMPERATURE FOR LONG PERIODS.
The next layer of the steeping myth is of course the "best way to steep." This includes ultrasonic steeping, venting(covered later in the post), tumbling, sawsall(or similar power tool) shaking, and good ol' time. The absolute best method for steeping, if you have the funds for it, is to purchase a lab grade homogenizer. These run around $500 on the low quality end, with some high end models being $6000. This is not cost-effective for the hobbyist DIYer. A homogenizer will give you the fastest and most consistent steep of all methods. The best method of steeping for a frugal vaper is just that, steeping(well, aging, but for some reason the term steeping stuck.) This method, you literally age your juice as you would a wine, bourbon, or hot sauce. You take your bottles, put them somewhere cool and dark, and wait. Creams and tobaccos(bold flavors) require a longer steep than fruits and candies("fresh" flavors.) If you are new to DIY, I highly recommend starting with fruit flavors, since patience is definitely a learned trait. Ultrasonic cleaners and power tools would be about the same in my opinion, as both have benefits to the other. US steeping CAN mix your juice better than elliptical shaking(sawsall) but can also damage the smaller volatiles. The power tool methods are less likely to damage the volatiles, but using a non-eliptical power tool will result in a centrifuge, separating the volatiles from the solute.
This deserves its own topic just because of how common it is to see new mixers feeling as though it is necessary. I've seen multiple threads in the past week where newbies have been explaining their mixing method, and venting, or leaving a bottle open for a duration of the steep, seems to be a given for them. Venting is not something you should worry about as a new mixer. It's a technique that is required for an extreme minority of flavors, and shouldn't be resorted to unless you have the experience and know without a doubt that your juice needs it. It is one of the fastest ways to ruin an otherwise good flavor. As mentioned earlier, your flavors are volatiles- meaning they readily evaporate at room temperature. By leaving the cap off your bottles, you lose a lot of your smaller volatiles that, believe it or not, make up a lot of your main notes in a juice. As an experienced mixer, there are roughly 3-4 out of my 300+ flavors that I recognize as benefiting from a vent. If you are a new mixer with less than 100 flavors, it's highly unlikely that anything you own requires a vent in order to be useful. You're still at the honeymoon phase of DIY, don't overthink it too much. Just throw your flavors together and work on crafting recipes. You will gain all the knowledge you need on advanced techniques such as venting and agitating(agitating is another form of venting, and not nearly as common) with experience.
I'll be lumping all enhancers and sweeteners together in this topic. This is another subject that I see newbies asking about far too frequently. Enhancers and sweeteners such as triacetin, Zemea, ethyl maltol, maltol, sucralose/stevia, and the FA enhancer line are all considered to be advanced tools. Very rarely will a juice need them, and even more rarely will the person using them know what they're doing. Even I avoid most of the FA enhancers, triacetin, and Zemea. All of these enhancers have a very high chance of ruining your juice if not used correctly. Rarely, if ever, will an experienced mixer give you advice telling you to add one of these to your recipe to make it better. In order to use sweeteners and enhancers properly you need to be a master of your flavors, being able to recognize the flavors by vendor in most juices you taste. On top of mastering your flavors you need to have a firm grasp on crafting nearly complete recipes without having tools available; be able to ad-lib a recipe with base notes, a balanced main flavor, and apparent profile, essentially. Without these two abilities, you're far more likely to try filling a gap in your flavor with an unnecessary enhancer, depriving yourself of useful experience and robbing your end result of the complexity of a well-crafted recipe.
Ethyl Maltol and sucralose are the two most common crutches that I see newbies using and asking about. There is no better way to ruin a recipe than to add too much sweetener. The way you avoid adding too much sweetener is simple; avoid it at all costs. Don't buy it and you won't be tempted to use it. The difference between a recipe that uses the sweet notes of TFA Strawberry at 1% and a recipe that uses EM @.5% is night and day. Recipes that use sucralose and ethyl maltol instead of finding a better source of sweetness taste cheap and lazy. Don't do that to yourself. Take a little extra time and find a way to not use sweeteners. Your recipes will benefit from it greatly and the experience you gain from experimenting is priceless.
Lastly, I want to quickly touch on external sweetness. This basically just means adding sweetener, or more specifically Sucralose. Sucralose is a sweetener that increases the overall sweetness of the recipe. If we weren't satisfied with the sweetness in the recipe above, we could easily add in CAP Super Sweet, or TFA Sweetener, to help supplement the lack of inherent sweetness. I personally believe you should make your recipe as sweet as you need INHERENTLY before adding in any type of external sweetness. Mainly because dumping sucralose into your recipe can hide many of the subtle flavorings going on, and kill the complexity of your recipe. The recipe above is quite delicate, and there's a lot of subtle notes within it. Just adding 0.5% CAP Super Sweet will cover those subtleties up and create a more "linear" profile. This is why opting for inherent sweetness with this recipe was more beneficial. It keeps those delicate notes, but still gives us the result we wanted. But…if you're one of those who are searching for that "off the shelf commercial" flavor, adding a lot of external sweetness is necessary. Commercial e-liquid has upwards of 2% of CAP Super Sweet, or a whopping 5% of TFA Sweetener. If you're a sugar head and love your e-liquids bold, simple, vibrant, and insanely sweet, feel free to add as much external sweetness you need.
TFA and FW are bad flavorings
This is something that I've seen pop up in a couple threads only recently. I'm not sure where the myth started, or when it started, but it's exactly that. A myth. These flavors may be the cheap, beginner flavors, but they're far from being bad flavors. They may not have the complexity of INW Wera-Garden flavors, or FA mix flavors, but TFA and FW have been, and likely always will be, a staple in most advanced users' recipes. TFA has some of the best fruit flavors available, and their strawberry flavors are second to none. FW produces some of the most accurate clones of real-world flavors(bananas foster, Red Bull, MtnDew, Swedish Fish) as well as some extremely good basic flavors. I all but worship FW Hazelnut, and TFA Strawberry and Strawberry Ripe are sitting comfortably at the front of my organizer in the 4oz bottles that I refill with the 16oz bottles I buy. They're that good. All flavor manufacturers have flavors that are terrible, and FW and TFA are no excuses, but the amount of great flavors they both produce far outweigh the "TFA Mary Jane" flavors. A good mixer doesn't limit his/herself by excluding all flavors from a manufacturer just because they have a couple duds. TFA is also the only manufacturer that discloses the ingredients of a large majority of their proprietary mixes, with looming regulations, this is an invaluable tool and hopefully an example of what the flavoring industry will become. http://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/specsheetlist.aspx for those that are curious.
TL;DR for the myth: No, they are not bad flavorings.
More Flavoring = More Flavor
Aroma volatiles give the impression of a flavor in generally a very specific range of PPM in concentrate. Going over that range can change the flavor.
For example, the aroma volatile of jasmine is the identical aroma volatile of feces at higher concentration. Also, the aroma volatile of butter flavor is the identical aroma of vomit at higher concentration.
Flavor concentrates are typically built with 3-12 different individual volatiles, so adding more concentrate to a mix may end up increasing some or all those volatiles into the feces/vomit range and then you end up with problems.
Whenever I think I found a great mix, I'll actually try that mix again with less total flavor to see if it still works. Helps to reduce vaper's tongue and also is easier on the wallet. Some of my mixes ended up being cut in half or more. Some professional eliquids I like are diluted by me by 25-60% before I vape them as they're overflavored!
TL;DR for the myth: More flavoring doesn't mean more flavor.
Steeping
This one comes up every day. Someone asks what the best way to steep is, or mentions that they will we speed steeping in a crock pot or some other medium. This is a multi-layer myth. There is no such thing as "speed steeping."† What happens to your juice during a "speed steep" is much like what happens to your wool sweater when "speed drying" instead of hanging it out to dry. You're diminishing your flavors; degrading them with the prolonged exposure to heat. Your flavors are made up of volatiles- chemicals that are already fairly unstable in a solution. By adding heat to these volatiles, you're causing them to change structure entirely. The recommended way to use heat while mixing is to just warm the bottle to about 90F to make the VG thinner and easier to mix. DO NOT KEEP THE BOTTLE WARMER THAN ROOM TEMPERATURE FOR LONG PERIODS.
The next layer of the steeping myth is of course the "best way to steep." This includes ultrasonic steeping, venting(covered later in the post), tumbling, sawsall(or similar power tool) shaking, and good ol' time. The absolute best method for steeping, if you have the funds for it, is to purchase a lab grade homogenizer. These run around $500 on the low quality end, with some high end models being $6000. This is not cost-effective for the hobbyist DIYer. A homogenizer will give you the fastest and most consistent steep of all methods. The best method of steeping for a frugal vaper is just that, steeping(well, aging, but for some reason the term steeping stuck.) This method, you literally age your juice as you would a wine, bourbon, or hot sauce. You take your bottles, put them somewhere cool and dark, and wait. Creams and tobaccos(bold flavors) require a longer steep than fruits and candies("fresh" flavors.) If you are new to DIY, I highly recommend starting with fruit flavors, since patience is definitely a learned trait. Ultrasonic cleaners and power tools would be about the same in my opinion, as both have benefits to the other. US steeping CAN mix your juice better than elliptical shaking(sawsall) but can also damage the smaller volatiles. The power tool methods are less likely to damage the volatiles, but using a non-eliptical power tool will result in a centrifuge, separating the volatiles from the solute.
- TL;DR for the myth: "Speed-steeping" doesn't exist. The best method for steeping is time in a dark room.
This deserves its own topic just because of how common it is to see new mixers feeling as though it is necessary. I've seen multiple threads in the past week where newbies have been explaining their mixing method, and venting, or leaving a bottle open for a duration of the steep, seems to be a given for them. Venting is not something you should worry about as a new mixer. It's a technique that is required for an extreme minority of flavors, and shouldn't be resorted to unless you have the experience and know without a doubt that your juice needs it. It is one of the fastest ways to ruin an otherwise good flavor. As mentioned earlier, your flavors are volatiles- meaning they readily evaporate at room temperature. By leaving the cap off your bottles, you lose a lot of your smaller volatiles that, believe it or not, make up a lot of your main notes in a juice. As an experienced mixer, there are roughly 3-4 out of my 300+ flavors that I recognize as benefiting from a vent. If you are a new mixer with less than 100 flavors, it's highly unlikely that anything you own requires a vent in order to be useful. You're still at the honeymoon phase of DIY, don't overthink it too much. Just throw your flavors together and work on crafting recipes. You will gain all the knowledge you need on advanced techniques such as venting and agitating(agitating is another form of venting, and not nearly as common) with experience.
- TL;DR for the myth: Venting is an advanced procedure, and runs the risk of ruining your juice. Forget about it until you are experienced enough to identify without a doubt that a flavor needs it.
I'll be lumping all enhancers and sweeteners together in this topic. This is another subject that I see newbies asking about far too frequently. Enhancers and sweeteners such as triacetin, Zemea, ethyl maltol, maltol, sucralose/stevia, and the FA enhancer line are all considered to be advanced tools. Very rarely will a juice need them, and even more rarely will the person using them know what they're doing. Even I avoid most of the FA enhancers, triacetin, and Zemea. All of these enhancers have a very high chance of ruining your juice if not used correctly. Rarely, if ever, will an experienced mixer give you advice telling you to add one of these to your recipe to make it better. In order to use sweeteners and enhancers properly you need to be a master of your flavors, being able to recognize the flavors by vendor in most juices you taste. On top of mastering your flavors you need to have a firm grasp on crafting nearly complete recipes without having tools available; be able to ad-lib a recipe with base notes, a balanced main flavor, and apparent profile, essentially. Without these two abilities, you're far more likely to try filling a gap in your flavor with an unnecessary enhancer, depriving yourself of useful experience and robbing your end result of the complexity of a well-crafted recipe.
Ethyl Maltol and sucralose are the two most common crutches that I see newbies using and asking about. There is no better way to ruin a recipe than to add too much sweetener. The way you avoid adding too much sweetener is simple; avoid it at all costs. Don't buy it and you won't be tempted to use it. The difference between a recipe that uses the sweet notes of TFA Strawberry at 1% and a recipe that uses EM @.5% is night and day. Recipes that use sucralose and ethyl maltol instead of finding a better source of sweetness taste cheap and lazy. Don't do that to yourself. Take a little extra time and find a way to not use sweeteners. Your recipes will benefit from it greatly and the experience you gain from experimenting is priceless.
- TL;DR for the myth: Don't use sweeteners/enhancers. When you are experienced enough, you will be able to recognize on your own when and where to use them, and when that time comes you can disregard what I tell you here. Until then, DON'T. USE. SWEETENERS.
Lastly, I want to quickly touch on external sweetness. This basically just means adding sweetener, or more specifically Sucralose. Sucralose is a sweetener that increases the overall sweetness of the recipe. If we weren't satisfied with the sweetness in the recipe above, we could easily add in CAP Super Sweet, or TFA Sweetener, to help supplement the lack of inherent sweetness. I personally believe you should make your recipe as sweet as you need INHERENTLY before adding in any type of external sweetness. Mainly because dumping sucralose into your recipe can hide many of the subtle flavorings going on, and kill the complexity of your recipe. The recipe above is quite delicate, and there's a lot of subtle notes within it. Just adding 0.5% CAP Super Sweet will cover those subtleties up and create a more "linear" profile. This is why opting for inherent sweetness with this recipe was more beneficial. It keeps those delicate notes, but still gives us the result we wanted. But…if you're one of those who are searching for that "off the shelf commercial" flavor, adding a lot of external sweetness is necessary. Commercial e-liquid has upwards of 2% of CAP Super Sweet, or a whopping 5% of TFA Sweetener. If you're a sugar head and love your e-liquids bold, simple, vibrant, and insanely sweet, feel free to add as much external sweetness you need.
TFA and FW are bad flavorings
This is something that I've seen pop up in a couple threads only recently. I'm not sure where the myth started, or when it started, but it's exactly that. A myth. These flavors may be the cheap, beginner flavors, but they're far from being bad flavors. They may not have the complexity of INW Wera-Garden flavors, or FA mix flavors, but TFA and FW have been, and likely always will be, a staple in most advanced users' recipes. TFA has some of the best fruit flavors available, and their strawberry flavors are second to none. FW produces some of the most accurate clones of real-world flavors(bananas foster, Red Bull, MtnDew, Swedish Fish) as well as some extremely good basic flavors. I all but worship FW Hazelnut, and TFA Strawberry and Strawberry Ripe are sitting comfortably at the front of my organizer in the 4oz bottles that I refill with the 16oz bottles I buy. They're that good. All flavor manufacturers have flavors that are terrible, and FW and TFA are no excuses, but the amount of great flavors they both produce far outweigh the "TFA Mary Jane" flavors. A good mixer doesn't limit his/herself by excluding all flavors from a manufacturer just because they have a couple duds. TFA is also the only manufacturer that discloses the ingredients of a large majority of their proprietary mixes, with looming regulations, this is an invaluable tool and hopefully an example of what the flavoring industry will become. http://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/specsheetlist.aspx for those that are curious.
TL;DR for the myth: No, they are not bad flavorings.
More Flavoring = More Flavor
Aroma volatiles give the impression of a flavor in generally a very specific range of PPM in concentrate. Going over that range can change the flavor.
For example, the aroma volatile of jasmine is the identical aroma volatile of feces at higher concentration. Also, the aroma volatile of butter flavor is the identical aroma of vomit at higher concentration.
Flavor concentrates are typically built with 3-12 different individual volatiles, so adding more concentrate to a mix may end up increasing some or all those volatiles into the feces/vomit range and then you end up with problems.
Whenever I think I found a great mix, I'll actually try that mix again with less total flavor to see if it still works. Helps to reduce vaper's tongue and also is easier on the wallet. Some of my mixes ended up being cut in half or more. Some professional eliquids I like are diluted by me by 25-60% before I vape them as they're overflavored!
TL;DR for the myth: More flavoring doesn't mean more flavor.
It's great to have someone with the knowledge and reputation speak about steeping and venting. Nothing beats good old fashioned time!
