Nettle e juice

[giles]

There have been suggestions that nettles, taken as tea, wine, or by powder inhaler, can relieve hayfever symptoms. I wouldn't want to suggest that any ejuice can be used for medical purposes.

I half-filled a tumbler with about 15 Heath & Heather nettle tea bags, and covered them with 37.5 proof M&S vodka. (The main merit of M&S vodka from my point of view is that I own most of a bottle and no-one will drink it - apparently very inferior to Smirnoff)

After 3 days I poured off the liquid, added around an equal volume of PG and reduced it in a saucepan (a slow cooker might be better if you have one). By the time it had cooled I had about 7ml of an almost black liquid, which smelt something like rotting grass. To this I added pg-base nic, giving me 8.5 ml of theoretically vapable juice at something like 18mg. I also dissolved some menthol crystals in PG - about 1 tsp of crushed crystals to 2.5 ml of PG.

24 hours later I screwed up my courage, put a few drops of the nettle juice on a 306, and vaped it. It tasted like it smelt.

I mixed 30 drops of the nettle juice with 6 drops of the menthol solution. The result tasted of little except the menthol, but still smelt a bit off. 

I guess the next stage would be to find something that masks the smell. Any suggestions?

[farzooks]

I do so admire you brave souls venturing into the chemical unknowns like that.

[Deleted]

Jul 21, 2013 23:42:36 GMT giles said:

There have been suggestions that nettles, taken as tea, wine, or by powder inhaler, can relieve hayfever symptoms. I wouldn't want to suggest that any ejuice can be used for medical purposes.

I half-filled a tumbler with about 15 Heath & Heather nettle tea bags, and covered them with 37.5 proof M&S vodka. (The main merit of M&S vodka from my point of view is that I own most of a bottle and no-one will drink it - apparently very inferior to Smirnoff)

After 3 days I poured off the liquid, added around an equal volume of PG and reduced it in a saucepan (a slow cooker might be better if you have one). By the time it had cooled I had about 7ml of an almost black liquid, which smelt something like rotting grass. To this I added pg-base nic, giving me 8.5 ml of theoretically vapable juice at something like 18mg. I also dissolved some menthol crystals in PG - about 1 tsp of crushed crystals to 2.5 ml of PG.

24 hours later I screwed up my courage, put a few drops of the nettle juice on a 306, and vaped it. It tasted like it smelt.

I mixed 30 drops of the nettle juice with 6 drops of the menthol solution. The result tasted of little except the menthol, but still smelt a bit off. 

I guess the next stage would be to find something that masks the smell. Any suggestions?

Hi giles

Any reason why you cooked it down with PG afterwards? You really only need to gently warm any PG/VG infusions for a few minutes in a water bath- this might explain why it turned black I suppose

With an alcohol based extract, you can use more VG in a recipe and use the nettle-vodka as a thinner which also adds the flavour - saves the need for mixing it with PG.

Also, 3 days of leaf extract is too much which might explain the silage smell. 24-48hrs max.

Not sure what to suggest to add re: smell, without smelling it. If you can't taste the nettles, I'd leave it to steep for a while.

[J_Mac]

Yeah +1 on @ashmal. Nettle tea bags into PG rather than vodka, bottle in a tap-hot-water bath and leave to cool (no gas hob or microwave action). Sounds like you caramelised that last batch?

I read a similar method for regular tea bags recently, seems like a gentle preparation would be better. Certainly a better starting point anyway. Love this nettle idea!

[digicig]

That would be me making suggestions more than Giles i think - is how i would usually make a tincture for aromatherapy type purposes - haven't tried with Nettles as would confuse the experimental results from Vaping them