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federete

Member For 1 Year
Hi there, my first post :)

I have so many problems with my first DIY liquids. I bought everything from vapable, including Strawberry milkshake concentrate, which has great reputation.

I mixed the flavour to 15%, 50/50 PG/VG, 6 mg nic. Tried steeping for a week. The thing has NO flavour, totally muted. And it is super harsh.

How is it possible that all reviews of Strawberry milkshake concentrate are great - am I the only dude unable to mix a liquid??

Thanks,
Fede
 

Teresa P

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High PG will make your juice harsh, as will some brands of nicotine, or nic that has oxidized. From reading their online reviews of this flavor, I saw that some were getting desired results at 10%. Perhaps there is too much concentrate at 15% for your tastes, as too much flavoring will often mute the flavors in general.
 

Mattp169

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to determine if you nic is an issue, make the mix with no nicotine.
To determine if it is your pg/vg mix, just mix up a couple mils of it with no flavor or nic
You did not mention your methods for measuring, this could be the issue.. you may have made a mistake in the mix, it happens to all of us from time to time.
 

federete

Member For 1 Year
Thanks!
I'll try that.
I mixed 4.5 ml of flavour (100% PG), 10 ml of 18mg nic (50-50%), 10 ml of VG and 5.5 ml of PG (all in that order). I use a plastic 30ml Unicorn bottle

Apart of a couple of initial warm baths, I left the bottle open for about 30 min once and reopen for a few minutes everyday. Maybe that oxidised the nicotine? Also, everyday did a bit of gently shaking the bottle. Maybe I was taking too much care of my liquids :)
 

Teresa P

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Thanks Teresa!
I will first try the nic with PG/VG without flavouring to check its harshness. Then, prepare a new batch at 10% flavour
Try a 10% flavor percentage with 70vg and 30pg. Make sure you use a juice calculator to measure your ingredients as accurately as possible. (I highly recommend ejuicemeup, a free download for Windows...www.breaktru.com)
 

bobnat

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Thanks!
I'll try that.
I mixed 4.5 ml of flavour (100% PG), 10 ml of 18mg nic (50-50%), 10 ml of VG and 5.5 ml of PG (all in that order). I use a plastic 30ml Unicorn bottle

Apart of a couple of initial warm baths, I left the bottle open for about 30 min once and reopen for a few minutes everyday. Maybe that oxidised the nicotine? Also, everyday did a bit of gently shaking the bottle. Maybe I was taking too much care of my liquids :)

Doing all that stuff is normal for beginners. Eventually, you'll do what most of us do which is mix it, put it away, then vape it days, weeks, or even months later.
 

The Cromwell

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Hi there, my first post :)

I have so many problems with my first DIY liquids. I bought everything from vapable, including Strawberry milkshake concentrate, which has great reputation.

I mixed the flavour to 15%, 50/50 PG/VG, 6 mg nic. Tried steeping for a week. The thing has NO flavour, totally muted. And it is super harsh.

How is it possible that all reviews of Strawberry milkshake concentrate are great - am I the only dude unable to mix a liquid??

Thanks,
Fede
Artificial strawberry is mostly flavorless with many people.
Myself included.
And the milk part may well contain butric acid (?) the replacement for Diacetyl. (?) and to many of us it tastes horrible to others not bad.

I have been 100% DIY got over 3 years and have the bitter gene and strange taste buds and find few flavorings I like and can tolerate.
Too many just taste too chemically to me.
 

eStorm

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Thanks!
I'll try that.
I mixed 4.5 ml of flavour (100% PG), 10 ml of 18mg nic (50-50%), 10 ml of VG and 5.5 ml of PG (all in that order). I use a plastic 30ml Unicorn bottle

Apart of a couple of initial warm baths, I left the bottle open for about 30 min once and reopen for a few minutes everyday. Maybe that oxidised the nicotine? Also, everyday did a bit of gently shaking the bottle. Maybe I was taking too much care of my liquids :)
waterbaths are used to thin down/out thicker juices aka high VG, because it takes already longer to get end results from higher VG juices in comparison to thinner juices. In your case 50/50 this doesn't apply and is not necessary.

Also how warm is warm, I see plenty of people using warm/hot water that comes out of there fausset, thinking its safe. Well in most cases it is not, taking a thermostat and actually measuring it, youll be surprised how hot that can be, which leads to the problem of messing up the nicotine.
Breathing is another well known method you're mentioning, and unless you using anything alcohol based or extremely odor intense flavoring, there's no reason to do that either at the start. You can do it but after a week or two till the actual flavor profile settled or as I mentioned you using a alcohol based flavor a lot of shake and vapes mostly do, to get that out you would open the bottle for 5 or 10 minutes not longer.

Mixing 10ml in a 30ml gives a lot of space, and is great when shaking it, but now giving it that much space for air that you let in with the breathing method, well I'm not surprised its harsh or tastes off lol. Also if you doing the water bath as explained above, never do it in plastic bottles, it don't matter if its high end or cheap, it will interfere with the results. Get 15-20ml glass and put it in there, shake it, put it away in the cabinet and wait.

I'm not sure which milkshake concentrate you bought and company you got it from, regardless tho all of them need a minimum of 3 days up to 7 days of steep, some even longer. Most of these are also at least 70/30 ratio, because while you can get a milkshake at 50/50, it wont be very creamy/authentic, its more like the skinny cow version of a milkshake. But i guess thats preference, it would help alot with the harshness so, after you stopped overheating your juice and airing for 30 minutes lol. You won't taste anything prior or it will taste very fruity, some taste very milky at first and so on. I could go on, but I think the point I'm trying to make came across lol.
 

UncleRJ

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Don't give up.

My first batches were AWFUL!

But now I have paid some of my dues and I am producing some pretty good flavors if I do say so myself.
 

federete

Member For 1 Year
Amazing feedback, guys, many thanks, especially to you, eStorm, for the thorough review! Lots of useful stuff!

Today I received a new mod (Tesla WYE, yeiii) and tried a different batch of DIY liquids, these ones from Capella. Although I am using the same VG, PG and nic, these liquids taste wonderful. Maybe I did something wrong with the strawberry milkshake, will give it another try with not much shaking nor warm baths, and lower flavour concentration. So happy I can vape again.
 

The Cromwell

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Amazing feedback, guys, many thanks, especially to you, eStorm, for the thorough review! Lots of useful stuff!

Today I received a new mod (Tesla WYE, yeiii) and tried a different batch of DIY liquids, these ones from Capella. Although I am using the same VG, PG and nic, these liquids taste wonderful. Maybe I did something wrong with the strawberry milkshake, will give it another try with not much shaking nor warm baths, and lower flavour concentration. So happy I can vape again.
The Capella Vanilla custard V1 is the only custard that I like and can tolerate.
 

nadalama

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Artificial strawberry is mostly flavorless with many people.
Myself included.
And the milk part may well contain butric acid (?) the replacement for Diacetyl. (?) and to many of us it tastes horrible to others not bad.

I have been 100% DIY got over 3 years and have the bitter gene and strange taste buds and find few flavorings I like and can tolerate.
Too many just taste too chemically to me.

Hey Cromwell. Just want to say that I often pick up chemical tastes from fruit flavors. I have had better luck with spicy and beverage flavors that aren't so sweet. As long as you've been at this I'm sure you've tried most everything, but I just wondered, do you notice "clusters" of flavors that have more of a chemical taste than others?
 

The Cromwell

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Hey Cromwell. Just want to say that I often pick up chemical tastes from fruit flavors. I have had better luck with spicy and beverage flavors that aren't so sweet. As long as you've been at this I'm sure you've tried most everything, but I just wondered, do you notice "clusters" of flavors that have more of a chemical taste than others?
Melon flavors are the absolute worst to me.
And for me INW fruits are pretty chemically and TFA as well.
Most love the Shisha Strawvberry. Tried at all strengths and can just get a bare hint of strawberry but lots of chemical.
Mixing CAP Sweet Strawberry and FA Strawberry 50/50 and using this as a flavoring is the best strawberry I have found from the artificial ones, but it fades in a week or so it seems.

My best luck with fruits is FA or CAP or even FW.

Actually Flavor Concentrates is the most accurate strawberry, blueberry, watermelon and bannana. The bannana needs to steep quite a while though.


And I can handle NO artificial sweeteners so any cotton candy, etc is out.

A few flavors that work for me are.
CAP Vanilla custard V1
CAP Vanilla whipped cream. - Think cool whip.
CAP Cinnamon Danish Swirl V1 - do not mix too strong or use some VC or Vanilla whipped cream with it.
I also use FW Butterscotch
A tiny bit of TFA Brown Sugar extract
And for Tobacco I like Hangsen Desert Ship.

For watermelon, Strawberry and Blueberry and Bananna
Flavor Concentrates.
flavorconcentrates.com
 

RonJS

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Thanks I was close enuf I think for people to understand though.

Since I understood it..Absolutely! I was responding to the...(?)
Horrible bile tasting stuff to me.

It certainly that way with me too. Others? Not so much.

It can fade with time. At first I couldn't vape wllmc's Cherry Pie recipe because of it. Five months later it was fine.
 

eStorm

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I've that too with some v2 flavor versions and not capella, that taste like baby vomit, however I don't like capellas custard v1 or v2. I know its everyone's favorite (v1) but to me it tastes like old dark moldy closet. Like when you walk in your grand parents closet/basement that smell you mostly get, is what I think it would taste like when vaping v1. Hard to explain lol. I do like capella not everything of course, but when it comes to custards I mostly get ooo, flv or inawera, only downside they are so dam expensive in comparison :(
 

MagicJosh

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Is it Flavor West Strawberry milkshake? Because that shit sucks. Steeping doesn't make your juice stronger? It actually weakens my e juice. You need to try different flavors and smell them to see how strong they are.
 

federete

Member For 1 Year
Hi MagicJosh. It's not that one, it's Vapable's Strawberry Milkshake. It smells very nice, very similar to OMG's strawberry milkshake (which I love). I wonder whether OMG uses Vapable's concentrate. I have mixed again, now at 70/30 VG/PG, 10% flavour with no breathing or warm baths in case that oxidised the nic. Will see the result in a couple of days and will post here
 

Hillbilly Pig

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Everyone has made garbage juice at some point, it's nothing to be discouraged by. We all had problems when first started, once you get past the initial learning curve, it becomes pretty easy. Only advice I got is Keep It Simple Stupid. Good luck, oh and welcome to VU :vino:
 

Mattp169

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The thing with a flavor like strawberry milkshake is 3 fold
1. strawberry and milkshake flavor are very subjective. There's dozens of strawberry flavors on the market and some people feel flavor company A's strawberry sucks but Flavor company B,s strawberry is excellent. Then there will be people who feel the exact opposite. The same is true for the ingredients to make a milkshake flavor. So TBH you picked a rough flavor choice for your first DIY flavor.
2. Vapable is not a flavoring company. They are mixing other company's flavors to make a recipe and selling it to you. So their recipe may just suck for you.
3. You have no idea if you like the individual flavors used in the Vapable recipe. I would always suggest trying out individual flavors by themselves form a company before investing in their recipe type flavorings. For example. Flavour Art (FA) is a favorite for many many people. Their individual flavors are very spot on in most cases. But when they started releasing recipe style flavorings. The reaction was mixed on many of them. Their idea of what people liked versus what people actually liked on some things was very different. Even with their new Pazzo line. While the reactions to most have been very positive so far, the description they give for some does not match what people are actually tasting. Their one that is suppose to taste like a cannoli is being described by some as a glazed donut. Those are two different things.

I have never heard of Vapable until now so I have no idea what their flavorings are like.
I would suggest heading over to bullcityflavors.com If you want to go complex and get lots of flavors, they have a community recipe section. These are tried and true recipes that many people like . You can buy everything you need to make the recipe from that page and at a discount.

Otherwise pick one or 2 or 3 basic flavors you like say Watermelon . Pick out a watermelon from several companies such as Flavor West, Flavour Art, Capella, etc. Try them all...every company's version of a flavor is usually different from the next. Pick up a couple of teh pazzo lize form FA and some of the silverline form Capella.

But before you order...google every flavor and look at what people are saying on as many sites as possible. You bought based on the reviews of a flavor recipe posted on the company's website...of course those reviews were very positive.
 

voicenyerhed

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One thing I have learned from my short tenure as a DIYer is that taste is far more subjective than I ever realized! If I had it to do all over again, I would try out a few different recipes from folks here and then see which ones matched my taste the closest. This way when looking for advice, you know exactly where to go. Also, I have found that a review on the site I am buying from is not the review that matters the most. Anytime I am buying a new flavor, I do a search here to see what people have said about it in the past. After awhile, you will get to know which companies make the juices that you tend to lean toward. And most important of all, EVERY DIYer has made crap juice!!!! They can't all be zingers! I felt hopeless at it at one point, but everyone here encouraged me to stick with it and now I am quite satisfied with my progress.

PS - Flavors with strawberry in them seems to be the dragon that many of us are chasing...http://vapingunderground.com/thread...le-that-cant-taste-strawberry-flavors.340602/
 

federete

Member For 1 Year
I am also surprised by that same thing: everyone taste is so different, there are so many highly reputed flavours I cannot stand...

Mattp169, the thing about Vapable's Strawberry Milkshake is that it smells very nice.... but it has no taste for me. Might be what's explained in the forum thread you recommended, voicenyerhed. I'll try some of those, strawberry is a worth dragon to chase

All very useful, thanks!
 

federete

Member For 1 Year
Forgot to say that the new batch (70/30 VG/PG, 10% flavour with no breathing or warm baths) is not harsh but is almost tasteless. It might be my buds cannot taste that kind of strawberry flavuor. Will try mixing with Innawera Shisha Strawberry as recommended by AndriaD
 

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