Bulk nicotine

[Deleted]

Sarin, please carry on, I'm all ears, its what you do and know so you certainly deserve the last word on this subject.

Can you advise on basics we can do in our homes to slow the process down. Ie fill the bottles to the brim, or shake bottle daily and open cap to release as much oxygen from the PG as possible before being freezing. Too late for me but for others is VG based better?

Also what's your estimate on time periods, I know there is a lot of variables but say will 72mg be 36mg in 5 years?

Regards

Stupid..

[Deleted]

Dec 17, 2014 17:23:33 GMT buggritt said:

Dec 17, 2014 8:14:36 GMT @kopiert said:

Can I ask why glass and amber coloured makes a difference?

While I am not entirely convinced the light goes off in a fridge (and I am still going through some rigorous testing). A freezer will be dark?

Nick

There's only one way to find out nick - put a small child in there. One that can communicate of course.

LOL

I had convinced my youngest, for a small fee of course - unfortunately my wife banjaxed the whole plan. Still don't know why!

[buggritt]

Wait until they are really naughty. Or your wife's out. Tell em Santa is in there. I lied to my kids every day.

[Deleted]

Ha ha., swap the naughty step for the naughty freezer.....

[*-SARIN-*]

Dec 17, 2014 17:32:20 GMT @letsavit said:

Sarin, please carry on, I'm all ears, its what you do and know so you certainly deserve the last word on this subject.

Can you advise on basics we can do in our homes to slow the process down. Ie fill the bottles to the brim, or shake bottle daily and open cap to release as much oxygen from the PG as possible before being freezing. Too late for me but for others is VG based better?

Also what's your estimate on time periods, I know there is a lot of variables but say will 72mg be 36mg in 5 years?

Regards

Stupid..

I'll try to break it down into sections.

Storing Nicotine Base - Always buy the highest % otherwise you are paying for PG/VG unless it suits you to buy lower strength or the lower strength is cheaper.

What to store it in?

Nicotine base should be stored in dark amber glass bottles to stop UV degradation and potential chemical leaching caused by plastic bottles.

How to store it?

If you bought 1litre+ then you should decant it into smaller quantities so that you aren't exposing the majority of the nic base to more oxygen every time you you want to use it.(Bigger bottle, greater surface area, more oxidation can take place).  Ideally when you break the one big bottle down into smaller ones you need to leave as little gap as possible when you fill up between the top of the bottle and the cap even if this means that when you screw the cap on, some dribbles down the side (use gloves).  The issue arises when you dispense some to use, the gap gets bigger unless you do one of two things:

1)  Top the bottle back up.
2)  You decant the nic into manageable size bottles in the first place so you can leave it in the fridge for the period that you use it all up.

Where in the freezer to store it?

Purely from a safety point of view it is best to store it at the bottom of the freezer so that if id does leak it doesn't contaminate anything else in the freezer.  I know that some people have a separate freezer for their nic but plenty just stick it in with the meat and veg!  Make sure that the bottle is labelled, not for you but for the other people that fancy a shot of that very chilled "vodka" at the bottom of the freezer.  I can confirm that chilled nic base looks very similar to chilled vodka when it is in a glass bottle!

What's better PG or VG as the carrier?

A personal preference really but with regards to degradation then VG has an extra O-H functional group (3 compared to 2 in PG) so i suspect that if degradation did take place it would be quicker in the VG.  However VG has a better shelf life that PG 2 years compared to 1 year generally.

Time Periods

I would expect to see and experience noticeable degradation after 5 years storage either in taste or colour.  Strength drop would need chemical analysis to determine but it won't be anywhere near half.

What not to do. 

Once decanted leave the bottles alone, the less they are disturbed the better.  DO NOT open the bottles if you don't need to and never shake them as this introduces oxygen to more of the nic base rather than just the surface.

[sleedale]

This is a very useful thread. Unless there are some serious offers before, in the new year I aim to buy a litre or two and now I know I want 100ml Amber glass bottles to store it in the freezer. Now all we all need is a lovely vendor selling nic at 50% discount

Thank you guys for this helpful discussion

[Deleted]

Excellent post Sarin, cheers

[Deleted]

Dec 17, 2014 19:52:18 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Dec 17, 2014 17:32:20 GMT @letsavit said:

Sarin, please carry on, I'm all ears, its what you do and know so you certainly deserve the last word on this subject.

Can you advise on basics we can do in our homes to slow the process down. Ie fill the bottles to the brim, or shake bottle daily and open cap to release as much oxygen from the PG as possible before being freezing. Too late for me but for others is VG based better?

Also what's your estimate on time periods, I know there is a lot of variables but say will 72mg be 36mg in 5 years?

Regards

Stupid..

I'll try to break it down into sections.

Storing Nicotine Base - Always buy the highest % otherwise you are paying for PG/VG unless it suits you to buy lower strength or the lower strength is cheaper.

What to store it in?

Nicotine base should be stored in dark amber glass bottles to stop UV degradation and potential chemical leaching caused by plastic bottles.

How to store it?

If you bought 1litre+ then you should decant it into smaller quantities so that you aren't exposing the majority of the nic base to more oxygen every time you you want to use it.(Bigger bottle, greater surface area, more oxidation can take place).  Ideally when you break the one big bottle down into smaller ones you need to leave as little gap as possible when you fill up between the top of the bottle and the cap even if this means that when you screw the cap on, some dribbles down the side (use gloves).  The issue arises when you dispense some to use, the gap gets bigger unless you do one of two things:

1)  Top the bottle back up.
2)  You decant the nic into manageable size bottles in the first place so you can leave it in the fridge for the period that you use it all up.

Where in the freezer to store it?

Purely from a safety point of view it is best to store it at the bottom of the freezer so that if id does leak it doesn't contaminate anything else in the freezer.  I know that some people have a separate freezer for their nic but plenty just stick it in with the meat and veg!  Make sure that the bottle is labelled, not for you but for the other people that fancy a shot of that very chilled "vodka" at the bottom of the freezer.  I can confirm that chilled nic base looks very similar to chilled vodka when it is in a glass bottle!

What's better PG or VG as the carrier?

A personal preference really but with regards to degradation then VG has an extra O-H functional group (3 compared to 2 in PG) so i suspect that if degradation did take place it would be quicker in the VG.  However VG has a better shelf life that PG 2 years compared to 1 year generally.

Time Periods

I would expect to see and experience noticeable degradation after 5 years storage either in taste or colour.  Strength drop would need chemical analysis to determine but it won't be anywhere near half.

What not to do. 

Once decanted leave the bottles alone, the less they are disturbed the better.  DO NOT open the bottles if you don't need to and never shake them as this introduces oxygen to more of the nic base rather than just the surface.

Glad I looked at this thread as some really useful information thanks *-SARIN-*. 

[lobeydosser]

When I buy nic base it is in one litre plastic bottles. I then decant this into 10 X 100ml amber jars.

I do this for two reasons.
1;- As my nic base is kept in the freezer, I only need to take out 100ml at a time.
2:- a 100ml jar has a wide neck and as I use syringes to measure my chemicals, I don't need to use needles as I can get the whole syringe into the jar, right down to the last dregs.

I don't know about deterioration or colour changes, I am only interested in what is best practise for me.
As I am making up my e-juice 100ml at a time, 100ml of nic base does not last too long once it is out of the freezer.

[Deleted]

Same as I do, as soon as I take delivery it's decanted into 10x 100ml Amber glass bottles filled to the neck. I then only remove one bottle at a time as needed.

[Deleted]

Mines going into 300ml bottles, currently 3 months worth. Have me my girlfreind plus 3 friends dueling, one friend is very nearly just vaping so could easy do the 5litres of 72pg in 1-2 years if the other friends follow. Not worried about the money if it goes off, I'll rather pour it down the drain than give BT or the tax man anymore of mine, but was planning on keeping it frozen and keep buying more when the need be.

Sarins thrown that idea out the window.....!

[Deleted]

I can see another guide coming on!

[VapingBad]

There is a relay good podcast linked on this thread on mixing from one of the leading e-cig research scientists, inc nic storage (agrees with all that been said by *-SARIN-*, though he says the air gap not an important problem as once the free oxygen has reacted with the nic oxidisation will slow to a negligible rate). Would love to read *-SARIN-*'s take on it after his excellent posts in this thread.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the link VapingBad - I will give it a listen

[Perpetua]

A little further interesting reading from a couple of years ago, that I've taken the liberty of quoting Dave Postmodern Smoking on:

Dec 23, 2012 0:25:46 GMT Postmodern Smoking said:

[Edit] Re. Long term storage
A quote from Kurt (ECF):

"As a professional chemist, I would recommend storing long term in glass. Nic in high concentration will slowly dissolve plastic, and PG will leach plasticizers from plastic. VG might too.
Sun’s fridge issues were with flavored juices stored six months, some of which were not even opened. I believe they were early Johnson Creek. The culprit was probably water in the JC recipe. I think decomp would have happened anyway, regardless. I do not think it was necessarily the fridge itself.
A sealed glass bottle of unflavored nic juice will not allow water in. The only reactant here is O2, which if there is little head room is negligible. O2 is very slightly soluble in PG or VG, and will be present in trace quantities in the solution no matter what you do, but it is not enough to make any appreciable change in 100 mg juice, even if it all reacts.
I use glass bottles from specialtybottles.com for storage of my unflavored 35-100 mg VG nic juice. The ones with eurodropper inserts, since I use them for syringe dispensing. Just stick an 18 gauge blunt needle through the center hole. With these inserts, accidental spill, which is a DISASTER with 100 mg juice, is eliminated. I use 50 mL bottles (although given how fast I go through them, I should have used 30 mL), fill them almost to the rim, put in the insert and screw on the cap.
I store them in the freezer. As long as they are brought to room temp before opening them, the liquid will not absorb much water from the air. I pull out one bottle at a time for juice making. I just pulled out a 100 mg VG bottle stored since January, and it has not even discolored compared to the original very slightly yellow, as in VERY slightly yellow. In my freezer, PG and VG do not freeze (I have some DV PG juice stored too), nor do they expand. VG becomes VERY thick, like rubber cement at the temp of my freezer. I have not tested for nic content, but the juices I make now are in my opinion no less potent than when I got the juice fresh.
Cool, dark, and dry is appropriate for a bottle opened and being actively used for DIY. Sealed is sealed, and extreme cold almost eliminates the kinetics of any O2 reactions and mold or bacteria growth, which is also almost eliminated by nic itself, PG or VG. I keep many 50 mL bottles in a sealed container in the freezer (actually a pet food container).
From what I know about these chemicals, I expect the juice to last certainly much much longer than 24 months, and probably many years.
This long term storage is for unflavored, and undiluted nic-juice only. I do not store flavored DIYs this way. I make them in relatively small quantities and vape them up before making more. Flavors are probably the most unstable part of e-juice, and the presence of water in them will hasten their decomposition into nasty tasting products. Fridge cold does not really change this a lot, it is dependent on the flavor itself. Fruits are especially prone, since they are esters that tend to hydrolyze to organic acids (sour, vinegar, vomit taste) and organic alcohols (wet-dog, funky taste).
Even unfrozen, liquid PG nic-juice in the freezer will still have slower reaction kinetics than room temperature liquid. Increased viscosity, such as VG nic-juice, will further lower kinetics of reactions of nic with O2: the molecules do not move around much to find each other. But all reactions slow down with cold regardless of viscosity changes. The fact that neither of these liquids freeze solid in the freezer is good. Solid is chrystalline, and is generally not the same composition as the liquid, in other words, freezing solid will promote separations…although after it melts to room temp, it can be mixed back to original uniform composition.
Is freezer storage overkill? Maybe. As I said, sealed is sealed, and the total reactions possible if its sealed are low. But I get a singular pleasure from taking one of those 50 mL bottles out, knowing it will be as fresh and potent as the day I bought it, even years down the line.
Based on my decades of chemical knowledge, I do honestly think this is the best option for long-term unflavored nic-juice storage."