Judging flavour strengths?

[Turkey_neck]

Hi all, Ive not long been vapeing and I'm a total noob at diy juice so I'm hoping for a little advice.

First off I did a few Capella, tfa and p&b flavours like Vimto, dandelion n burdock, Tutti Frutti, vanilla Custard, Choc Fudge Brownie and Boston Cream Pie. They were all pretty disgusting straight away but after a few weeks steep they got better, not very nice still though so I've gone for some flavourart flavours. I've chosen caramel, chococo melt, double delight, Custard cream, cream fresh and strawberry.
This time round I shook them a few times throughout the day then left to steep. I've tried these after a 24 hour steep and they are OK. They aren't brilliant but they certainly don't taste disgusting like the last ones. The strawberry and strawberry with cream fresh is vapeable though and is quite nice. Hopefully the flavours will come out in the others with a good steep. Mg question is how do you guys judge the flavour strength before its steeped. I don't know whether to wait a couple of weeks or mix a few more batches at a slightly higher percentage as I don't really get any flavour yet. Should I at least taste a little something with the chocolate and Custard ones before its properly steeped?

 

[Trevbrown]

Are you mixing flavours or just putting 1 concentrate in?

 

[nwhornet]

If these are one shot/single flavour mixes best to make 5/10ml samples at varying % (label the bottles & leave out nic so as not to waste it). Anything with cream/custard ideally needs 2 week minimum before they're vapable I find. Fruits as a rule of thumb are shake & vape (24hrs rest) but taste is so individual each to their own. Most sites show a recommended range to mix in for each flavour so use that as a marker.

 

[Turkey_neck]

Are you mixing flavours or just putting 1 concentrate in?

Just single flavours for now until Im used to what I'm doing, apart from doing a strawberry and cream fresh.

If these are one shot/single flavour mixes best to make 5/10ml samples at varying % (label the bottles & leave out nic so as not to waste it). Anything with cream/custard ideally needs 2 week minimum before they're vapable I find. Fruits as a rule of thumb are shake & vape (24hrs rest) but taste is so individual each to their own. Most sites show a recommended range to mix in for each flavour so use that as a marker.

I'm only doing 10ml batches atm, I am using nicotine though. The first ones I did ranged from 7% (Vimto and Tutti Frutti) to 20% (Vanilla Custard).
These flavourart ones I've done between 3%-5% and like I say have started so much better.
If I did a chococo melt at say 5% and after 24hrs I dont taste much, what would you do another sample at? For all I know that 5% might be ok in a couple of weeks. I know it's going to take some time and experimenting, it's just tricky trying to figure out what I should expect to get from 24hour steeped juice to then figure out how to adjust without the wait. I read ppl wait 24hours and sample it, Ive sampled and haven't got a clue if I should do some stronger or not lol

 

[Trevbrown]

I'm no expert at mixing but have you tried looking at other people's recipes and copying some of them? I think it's extremely difficult to get a single flavour to taste any good your much better off blending a few together. Have a look on here and the internet there are loads of good recipes to try where the guesswork has been done by others. It should give you a good starting point at least then you can tweak or come up with your own having a better understanding

 

[nwhornet]

Time is the only real way. Find a couple that taste good in a few days & mix more to stockpile. The testers I would chuck in box & check again in a week, any good ones you now know take about a week. The not so good come back to in another week & so on. It may take a month testing like this before you find the flavours you're happy with. The rank ones may be made vapable with a few drops of EM (sweetener) or one of the smoothers so may be worth a try.

 

[Turkey_neck]

No I haven't I thought I'd leave the mixes for now, I'll take your advice mate. If it's tricky for standalone flavours to do the trick then I may aswell try some recipe mixes.

 

[Trevbrown]

I did exactly the same as you and thought I'd just wasted my money but did a bit of reading and understand a bit more now I just need to order some new concentrates I pretty much just bought fruits and couldn't make anything worth while lol. I did have a premium liquid I didn't like at all though the white anarchist which is like a marshmallow flavour but to me it was horrible so I tried adding 1% lemon to it and it's now one of my favourites

 

[b road blaster]

TBH i would buy some one-shots to get you going and then you will have something to vape while you play / practise your mixing
to make full recipes.
The new type of one shots are so easy to make and very tasty its hard to get a bad one ,ok you may not like the favour but that don't make it a bad mix.

 

[Tazz]

Im no expert but i use FA a lot. Many times the recomened % is way too low for my taste. An example is a simple Brandy and Cola one i like. At suggested levels to me its weak as. But for me the Cola at 8% and Brandy at 6% is nice. The suggested 3% for many i find myself often doubling or even going a bit higher. TFA RY4D is tasteless to me under 15%. Something that helps me to know its gonna be good is to taste test a drop or two. Ill drip some onto the back of my hand and taste it. If it dont taste good there then 9 out of 10 it dont taste good vaping either. Ill taste a drop of say Choc, marshmallow, caramel, cookie after its sat a couple of weeks. If its not sweet enough ill add a couple of drops of Cap super sweet. Needs more Choc and i had 4% in it, ill add another 2%. Works for me. Some recipes though dont shine for weeks though and adding like that can ruin it, especially tobacos. Those you gotta be patient with. Made a Ry4d with caramel and jamaican rum 6 weeks ago. 4 weeks ago it was just ok, now after 6 id drink it. Bit of trial and error with what you can fiddle with along the way and what you cant but in the end youll know.