Become a Patron!

AndriaD's Recipe - A Query

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Hi,
I've recently started getting in to the DIY thing, and I saw a recipe in an old thread (on anther site) by AndriaD

Inawera Shisha Strawberry 16%
TFA DX Bavarian Cream 6%
TFA Vanilla Swirl 4.5%
CAP Sweet Cream 2%
TFA Sweetener 2% - 3%

Looks nice, so I bought the ingredients and did a batch 2 days ago.

I've just noticed, on the suppliers site, that Inawera Shisha Strawberry is recommended at 1-5%. I followed the recipe and used 16% - was that a typo? (1.6% maybe?)

Cheers folks,
 

MrMeowgi

The Vapin' Drummer
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Andria uses more than most. If it's good to you then vape it up. If you want to try at a lower % then go for it. Best part of diy. It's up to you. Plus she vapes mtl so most times you have to up the flavor for less vapor production
@AndriaD
 

BigDisplay

Member For 4 Years
I'm MTL vaper my self and mostly i mix it 50/50 or even 70pg/30 and most often use less flavor percent then back in the days where i was mixing it 80 or 90%vg and was a DL guy... Ofc.

I taste my vape much better as a MTL vaper.

And PG gives the the taste we say and VG the vape.
So u always have to use more flavor for mixing if u use high VG.

2 or even 3% sweetener is really a lot, but again we are all different and have different taste and needs

And welcome to VU @Steve1401


Sendt fra min EVR-L29 med Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
I have a Blotto for dl, and at work I use a Hellbeast with Aspire 1.6 coils for a more discrete mtl. (I work in Further Education - I think the management would frown on seeing me in the smoking shelter blasting out clouds with the students and apprentices !).

I've only had 2 other RTA's - Goblin v3 and an Artisan Envii, but the flavour off the Blotto puts those in the shade - (I'm not sure why, maybe my wicking has improved!) - and I'd have to say it's better than my mtl tank.
 

nadalama

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
VU Patreon
@AndriaD

I'm pretty sure Andria has lowered the percentages she uses to mix this now, but I don't know what those are. I think the last number I heard was about 24% total flavors, but that's just a guess.

If I were going to mix this, I'd cut the amount of flavors in half, at least as a start.
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Thanks - that's very similar advice to that I've received elsewhere. I may leave it for a week or two and try it in my mtl, I can always decant half and top up with base if it's too strong.
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
I recently, this past week, dropped again a little bit... the recipe as it now stands is:

Inawera Shisha Strawberry 12.2%
TFA DX Bavarian Cream 4.2%
TFA Vanilla Swirl 3%
CAP Sweet Cream 1%

Total flavoring: 20.4%

But, I've been vaping this same ejuice, with regular decreases in flavoring, since December 2014. Yes, it did start out in Dec 2014 with the shisha strawberry at 16%, because when I tried that flavor at 2%, 4%, and 8%, I couldn't taste it AT ALL So I doubled it again, and then increased the supporting flavors to match, so it started out at 31% flavoring. Why anyone would want the flavoring to be less than 20% beats the hell out of me, but maybe in another 5 yrs, I'll get there.

But if you wanna sit there wondering if you can taste your vape or if you're just imagining it, knock yourself out.

Andria
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Hey - you lost the sweetener :)

Thanks for replying. My op was just to check 16% wasn't a typo, I'm new to the diy thing and wanted to make sure I hadn't made a stupid mistake. Now I know I made it as intended I'm happier :)
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
Hey - you lost the sweetener :)

Thanks for replying. My op was just to check 16% wasn't a typo, I'm new to the diy thing and wanted to make sure I hadn't made a stupid mistake. Now I know I made it as intended I'm happier :)

Yeah the sweetener was the very first decrease -- it started at 2%, and sometime in 2016, I had to start dropping it FAST, until finally it was just gone. My son makes a version of this for himself and he still follows my 2016 recipe, which I think was a total flavoring around 27%, including just a smidge of sweetener... like .1% or .2%, something like that. Although I'm a very-low wattage vaper (10w), he vapes anywhere from 40w-60w, so I think the amount of flavoring really has little to do with one's preferred wattage, and is just a matter of one's tastebuds, including the fact that many people either find commercial ejuice overflavored or oversweetened, or they're just appalled at how much flavoring is really necessary to make a really good vape.

You may note that as originally formulated, the strawberry and the supporting flavors were pretty closely paired at 50/50, because that's how I first learned to do it, over at Asshole Central (ECF). But the creams make the ejuice much richer, and they're pretty sweet in their own right, as is the shisha strawberry, so now, it's more like 2/3 strawberry, 1/3 supporting creams. To me, it's sweet enough that way, and not too rich, which is important since I vape it all day every day. BUT, if you want to keep the richness like for a dessert vape, then it would be good to try and keep it to that 50/50 strawberry/creams.

Andria
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
How are you and the family doing @AndriaD? I hope all is well.

This is the beauty of DIY and vaping. You get to vape what works for you. There is no right or wrong.

We're all doing great, thx! How 'bout you? The family hanging tough?

The ability to MICRO-customize my vape is why I first started DIY, and have never had the slightest interest in going back to commercial ejuice -- besides the fact that nowadays it's all high-VG, which suffocates me. :)

I honestly don't know why I'm perfectly happy to vape the same thing all the time, and everyone else seems to play musical flavors... but to me, it's like with smoking; I smoked the same brand of cigarettes for more than 30 yrs, and anything else just didn't taste right. I can sometimes taste something my son vapes (though it's difficult, his vape is so ultra-airy), and it may taste fine... but it's not My Vape. I've occasionally mixed up something new and different, and even if it turns out well and I like it... it's still not My Vape. I guess it's really the same reason I smoked the same cigarettes for 30+ yrs -- that sameness was security.

Andria
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Makes sense to me - when I started smoking I quickly settled on one brand of pre-rolled and smoked them for years. When they became too expensive I found one brand of hand-rolling baccy and smoked that for 20+ years. When that became too expensive I found 1 brand of eliquid and have used that for 5 years - even ordering it from the USA when I couldn't get it here in the UK.
Actually, the reason I've got into diy is because I just can't get my normal juice any more - I can't even find a US supplier who ships it to the UK!

I'm fully expecting that when I find the homebrew I like, I'll be with it until circumstances force me to change :)
 
Last edited:

gopher_byrd

Cranky Old Fart
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
We're all doing great, thx! How 'bout you? The family hanging tough?

The ability to MICRO-customize my vape is why I first started DIY, and have never had the slightest interest in going back to commercial ejuice -- besides the fact that nowadays it's all high-VG, which suffocates me. :)

I honestly don't know why I'm perfectly happy to vape the same thing all the time, and everyone else seems to play musical flavors... but to me, it's like with smoking; I smoked the same brand of cigarettes for more than 30 yrs, and anything else just didn't taste right. I can sometimes taste something my son vapes (though it's difficult, his vape is so ultra-airy), and it may taste fine... but it's not My Vape. I've occasionally mixed up something new and different, and even if it turns out well and I like it... it's still not My Vape. I guess it's really the same reason I smoked the same cigarettes for 30+ yrs -- that sameness was security.

Andria
We are all hanging in there. Oldest works as a store manager in "essential" retail so she still has income coming in. Youngest works as an account manager for an agriculture marketing agency that had totally switched over to working from home before the crap hit the fan. I'm working from home as well until things calm down and I can head down to Los Angeles for some field work. My wife has been retired for a while now, so staying at home is not new to her.

I have 6 or so recipes that are always in rotation, for me life is too short to vape just one thing when there are so many options out there.
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
We are all hanging in there. Oldest works as a store manager in "essential" retail so she still has income coming in. Youngest works as an account manager for an agriculture marketing agency that had totally switched over to working from home before the crap hit the fan. I'm working from home as well until things calm down and I can head down to Los Angeles for some field work. My wife has been retired for a while now, so staying at home is not new to her.

I have 6 or so recipes that are always in rotation, for me life is too short to vape just one thing when there are so many options out there.

My son is out of work, since he runs poker tournaments in bars; the club that runs the poker games suspended all games, then Gwinnett county closed all bars and all restaurants that don't have drive-thrus. But we were carrying him quite well until he got that job back in the fall, so it's not a huge problem. His tech school is closed too.

My husband drives a forklift at a plant that makes cardboard boxes for shipping, and given how everyone now wants to ship rather than visit, that's an essential business. Harder is convincing him that 1) this is NOT a hoax, 2) he is NOT immortal, and 3) his job puts me, an asthmatic, at risk, so he needs to do everything possible to try to lessen that risk, both to me, and to his 67 yr old self! I don't know how this intelligent man got so very stupid as to believe everything that comes out of Fox News' mouths, and my son and I are both working overtime to try and correct that massive stupidity, but it's a real challenge. :facepalm:

Andria
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
Makes sense to me - when I started smoking I quickly settled on one brand of pre-rolled and smoked them for years. When they became too expensive I found one brand of hand-rolling baccy and smoked that for 20+ years. When that became too expensive I found 1 brand of eliquid and have used that for 5 years - even ordering it from the USA when I couldn't get it here in the UK.
Actually, the reason I've got into diy is because I just can't get my normal juice any more - I can't even find a US supplier who ships it to the UK!

I'm fully expecting that when I find the homebrew I like, I'll be with it until circumstances force me to change :)

I just updated my DIY blog page, the one given in my sig (http://vapingunderground.com/blogs/andria-s-best-recipes.20/) to reflect the newest recipe for the strawberry & cream. There are a couple other recipes on that page too. No idea how you feel about "tobacco-ish" vapes, but my son really enjoyed the clove cigar mix I made for him. I don't think I ever added the "Camel-like" recipe I made for him, but it was what helped him get off the Camel cigarettes he enjoyed. I'll see if I can find that, if you have any interest; it's probably somewhere in my google sheets, and also probably in my ecigvape recipes.

Andria
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Wow - surprised to see the original recipe needs minimum steep time. I'll try that in the morning, it's been mixed for 3 days now

I'm not a great fan of the tobacco flavours - maybe because the first half dozen or so I tried (after quitting) tasted so appalling it just put me off, Thank you very much for the offer though :)

I will be mixing up a batch of the latest version recipe tomorrow !
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
Wow - surprised to see the original recipe needs minimum steep time. I'll try that in the morning, it's been mixed for 3 days now

I'm not a great fan of the tobacco flavours - maybe because the first half dozen or so I tried (after quitting) tasted so appalling it just put me off, Thank you very much for the offer though :)

I will be mixing up a batch of the latest version recipe tomorrow !

Yeah, the major reason I went so high on percentages of flavoring was just because I've ALWAYS thought that steeping bullshit was exactly that, total bullshit. I don't cook a meal and then stash it in the pantry for a week before eating it! One reason I can go so much lower now is not only that my tastebuds have greatly recovered from 39 yrs of smoking, but also because I now mix 90-96ml of ejuice at once, when i still have 30-40ml from the last mix, so it can sit for a while before i use it -- if I was still mixing a week's worth at a go (30ml or less), I'd probably still use a good bit more than i do now.

And I agree, most tobacco-type vapes are pretty awful... but there are additives that can make them a lot more realistic, and I used some of those in my son's 'Camel-like' vape -- Inawera's Dirty Neutral Base, Inawera's Virginia Tobacco Absolute, and FlavourArt Bitter Wizard -- along with FA's Desert Ship flavoring, he said that he'd have to look at his hand to know if he was vaping or smoking!

But if you've been off tobacco for a while, then "realistic tobacco" taste is definitely not something you really want, since tobacco, realistically, tastes like shit. ;)

Andria
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Haha I get what you're saying about steeping - but if I was playing Devils advocate I'd say that I wouldn't brew some beer or wine at home and expect to drink it the following day !

I have about 6 different 100ml bottles mixed up now, I'll add your reduced mix tomorrow - can't wait to start trying them tbh :)

Thanks for all your (and everyone else's) help :)
 

Just Frank

Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I saw a post on Reddit. Somebody was furious about Inawera supposedly changing Shisha Strawberry. I never follwed up on reading that thread. The poster said it didn't taste right and was a lot worse. People were saying Inawera does that kind of thing more than most companies, which is true. They're also known for bad batches too. Who knows, maybe the place they bought the Shisha Strawberry was mislabeled.

In any event, I wouldn't use Shisha Strawberry above 3%.
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
I saw a post on Reddit. Somebody was furious about Inawera supposedly changing Shisha Strawberry. I never follwed up on reading that thread. The poster said it didn't taste right and was a lot worse. People were saying Inawera does that kind of thing more than most companies, which is true. They're also known for bad batches too. Who knows, maybe the place they bought the Shisha Strawberry was mislabeled.

In any event, I wouldn't use Shisha Strawberry above 3%.

I couldn't taste it at 8%! Hence the doubling. But I've got it down to 12-something percent now. It tastes as it always has -- like strawberries with sugar on 'em.

Andria
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
I think I saw the same thread Frank.

At 16% it turned out so flavourful that after smoking it for an hour in the evening I could still taste it when I woke up the following day. :)

I've diluted some of the mixture with 1/3rd base, and some at 1/2 base, but tbh, for my taste buds, I think even then it's still going to be very potent.

It's all part of the fun :)
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
I think I saw the same thread Frank.

At 16% it turned out so flavourful that after smoking it for an hour in the evening I could still taste it when I woke up the following day. :)

I've diluted some of the mixture with 1/3rd base, and some at 1/2 base, but tbh, for my taste buds, I think even then it's still going to be very potent.

It's all part of the fun :)

If you're smoking a vape, you're doing it wrong.

Andria
 

AndriaD

Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
That explains why the matches kept going out.

LOL. I think you and my husband would get along well. Anytime someone says something about "chain smoking," he says how hard it must be to keep the chain alight. And he correctly maintains that it's impossible to vape a chain. ;)

Andria
 

Steve1401

Member For 1 Year
Sounds like a man after my own heart :)

Sign outside furniture store "Massive Sofa Sale" .... I only have a small lounge, it'd never fit in.
Sign put up on Bonfire Night "Mammoth Bonfire on Friday" ....... someone should call animal rescue.

:)
 

VU Sponsors

Top