What do you do with "failed" juice?

[reefcat]

While I'm waiting for a shipment from Chefs Vapour, I started going through my box of home made juices that never made it. Most of them are failry black now, made over 18 months ago, and TBH, despite the label, I'm not too sure what's in them. That's because I find a nice looking recipe, buy all the bits, make it up & let it steep. For one reason or another it doesn't meet expectations, so I fiddle with it a bit, add a bit of this, a bit more of that, all the time trying to maintain the nic & vg where I want it. This rarely works, if it does work then I've vaped it without really knowing what was in it, if it doesn't work it gets put back in the cupboard.

I know that I'm not disciplined enough at keeping records, although I have been using dot1ml.com to try and keep track. I should also be making up 10ml testers, but find that dealing in small fractions of a ml makes it all a bit tedious, so I usually make 30ml as a minimum, just because the quantities are easier to deal with.

So I've got a load of failed juice that I have now put into one 500ml bottle that will almost certainly end up down the sink. There's a sort of reluctance to flush it away though, all that expensive nic and flavourings, despite the fact it probably tastes terrible.

What do you do with your failures? When do you "give up" on a recipe and decide to bin it? Do you try and recover it and make something else, or just write it off?

[Tom]

For all the reasons you state above reefcat I tend to make samples in 5ml size.

I have a bottle of 3mg and VG made up - normally about 50ml.

This is then used to test 5ml samples of flavours as 10% or 20% or a recipe I'm trying. Makes it super easy to quickly make small flavour testers.

If you make big testers, your'e going to have big waste.

[Deleted]

If you are using the ejuice me up calculator there is a box for keeping notes. Very handy for keeping notes on tweaks and revisions to recipes and keeping a history. :thumbup:

[spacey]

I'm stupidly ocd about note keeping and have have a handwritten book that I keep all my notes in - a page to a recipe, then dates I tested it, what I think could improve it, whether I added anything extra at a later date etc. What can I say....it keeps me happy

I usually only ever make 5ml testers when trying something completely new, even if it's a diy recipe that has mixing land raving. I think there's been a couple of times I've made 10 mls to test, but only when the %'s have been too tiny to be accurate if making a smaller amount.

Even mixing up 5ml testers I still end up with many mls of failed juice. I try and add something to make these at least vapable so not to waste lots, and will usually take them to work so I have no choice but to vape them! But yeh, the ones that have no chance of being remotely vapable will eventually get chucked down the sink

[OneDay]

There's a strange bit of dark magic around e-juice. That is: if you mix a load of crappy juice together you will often get something quite pleasant that you can never reproduce. So yeah, when you're sure a juice is a definite failure chuck it in a bigger bottle with other failed stuff and you might come out with a winner

[Perpetua]

Jul 5, 2015 8:55:01 GMT reefcat said:

What do you do with your failures? When do you "give up" on a recipe and decide to bin it? Do you try and recover it and make something else, or just write it off?

I don't have many . . . . not because I'm so thrilled with everything I mix, because I'm not reefcat!

But I do have the patience to let things steep for a good time before any tweaks are made and I never mix more than a 10ml sample to begin with - round up/down to the ml or .5ml if you find the fractions tedious. It's unlikely to have any significant difference on your end result, I can't be doing with them myself either.

If I still don't like something post tweaks, it gets the ' Tiramisu Treatment ' which is such a strong flavouring, as a rule it covers everything else up.

Only then if that doesn't work it gets sinked, I doubt that I've sinked more than 50ml of eliquid in almost 5 years of mixing.

[spacey]

Jul 5, 2015 10:37:28 GMT Perpetua said:

If I still don't like something post tweaks, it gets the ' Tiramisu Treatment ' which is such a strong flavouring, as a rule it covers everything else up.

Only then if that doesn't work it gets sinked, I doubt that I've sinked more than 50ml of eliquid in almost 5 years of mixing.

Hahaha I love that - I might start using that phrase in every day life, like when politicians try and cover stuff up they're giving it the 'Tiramisu Treatment'

[Pepperty]

Yup! I do the 'Tiramisu Treatment' also

If I don't much like a stand alone flavour I make a 'fruit punch' and lob them all into one -- have a nice bottle of strawberry/peaches and cream/blueberry and pomegranate with splashes of blackberry, raspberry, tangerine and lemon and lime! its quite palatable now

There are very few shop bought juices I cant plow through also? - most grow on me and I can get through a bottle. With my DIY the failure is often lack of depth so if I chuck a few matching flavours together I'll automatically get some delicate undertastes that I'll enjoy more. I think an added percentage of complimentary flavours to a basic mix can lift a juice well

[chykensa]

I'm a skinflint so vape my nasties after a good steep. I save all my recipes on the full version of the forum calculator so can always find what I did and work out why the juice hasn't met expectations, but maybe I'm just lucky but I haven't had too many failures.
I buck the '5ml tester' syndrome and always go for 30ml minimum - if I like it I have enough to make an informed judgement, and if it's not too good, it goes back in the Juice Box for another steep.

[reefcat]

Think I need to buy some Tiramisu concentrate

I confess to not being good on the patience thing. Only just recently returned to vaping and having real problems with tasting anything at the moment. Hence tryiing out new recipes with my currently limited resources, and not giving them the time they need.

I have a very limited selection of juice, although there's quite a few in the post...Every evening all the juices I have start to taste of nothing at all, the only one with a hint of flavour left is Red Astaire, and that's only becasue of the menthol. I've started drinking tonic water in the evening to try and kickstart the tastebuds.

Some good tips here, thank you all, will be more disciplined when I restart my mixing journey properly.

[Perpetua]

Jul 5, 2015 11:53:17 GMT reefcat said:

I confess to not being good on the patience thing. Only just recently returned to vaping and having real problems with tasting anything at the moment. Hence tryiing out new recipes with my currently limited resources, and not giving them the time they need.

Patience ( to me ) is vital in the mixing process if you want to get a good result reefcat - otherwise the temptation is to over flavour, which can be as untasty as too little flavouring.

Especially if you're mixing Dessert/Custard type vapes, they really are so much nicer as they develope. Fruit blends need less time as do Minty Menthols.

Is it worthwhile investing in a couple of ' Shake n Vape ' concentrates, whilst you're waiting for more complex blends to mature - there's a fair few nice ones about now.

If you've several flavours on the go at once that you enjoy, then you're more likely to taste them individually ( I think ) . . . . Taste Bud Fatigue, affects me also despite the years now I've not smoked. Keeping a variety of flavours used during the day does help prevent that I find.

[toots]

I've got loads of failed 10ml bottles of juice with a couple of ml missing in each sitting in my vape cupboard, where they've been for gould knows how long now, not known what to do with them 

The tip on here for mixing some of them together in one bigger bottle is an idea I'd never thought of - might rescue at least some of them. I think I'll give it a go

[reefcat]

Thank you for the words of wisdom Perpetua. I've got loads of stuff "in the post", unfortunately they are still using donkeys & carts to move it around the country. Hopefully I'll have some Shake n Vape concentrates, & some ready made juices arriving soon. Once I have enough in stock to vape on a daily basis, I can work on developing some patience.

[autumntwist32]

Jul 5, 2015 10:33:45 GMT OneDay said:

There's a strange bit of dark magic around e-juice. That is: if you mix a load of crappy juice together you will often get something quite pleasant that you can never reproduce. So yeah, when you're sure a juice is a definite failure chuck it in a bigger bottle with other failed stuff and you might come out with a winner

Lol, this is so true  All my failures end up in one bottle and I've often been gobsmacked when the magic kicks in and a very nice liquid emerges out of nowhere. I even mix up concentrates that I no longer like now and keep them for the magic bottle, I rarely waste any mixing gear

[Deleted]

I'm vaping my failed juice right now. It's quite "quirky" with flavours only a mad mad would put together. It's banana, strawberry, raspberry, orange, menthol. Base notes with mojito, pear, blueberry top. It's ok but a real insult to my tastebuds. Only another 90mil to get through. Just odds and sods bunged together to use them up. I refuse to throw it away as needs must .

Looks like stewed stale coffee