Creating something on your own, a.k.a. how to make your own e-juice?
What if I tell you that vape shops and e-juice manufacturers didn’t have to dictate what flavour and PG/VG ratio juices to enjoy? If you learn how to create your own juice, you will have an independence from brands and their products; additionally, you will gain a sense of accomplishment by using your creativity and unique personal taste to create something original. Of course, it might seem easier to just buy readily available e-liquids from any vape shop, but why settle for a limited range of flavours, when you can experiment with endless possibilities and find new favourites? So, we decided to show you how to mix your own e-juice, offering you the chance of infinite flexibility with what you create and how you create it for a cheaper price than regular retail versions.
The basics needed for making your own e-juice are simple:
- VG and PG
- flavour concentrates
- nicotine (optional)
- accessories
- creative recipes
What is VG and PG?
Vegetable Glycerin (VG) and Propylene Glycol (PG) are the food-safe bases that you combine with different elements to create e-juice. These two liquids produce vapour when heated, which you can inhale. This provides the familiar vaping sensation you know and love.
When mixing these ingredients, the recommended ratio is 50/50, meaning 50% VG and 50% PG. You can adjust this ratio depending on your preferences. If you want a throat hit and a more sophisticated taste, use more PG, for example a 30/70 VG/PG ratio. PG carries the flavours better and creates less vapour, so if you don’t want to show off your clouds too much, opt for a higher PG percentage.
For a smoother feeling in your throat and mouth and for more elaborate cloud tricks to impress your friends with, use more VG. Flavour-wise, VG provides less nuance than PG, because it has a higher viscosity, causing it to atomize at a different rate. Because of this, coils can burn out quicker, leaving a more charred, slightly bitter taste. High VG is not recommended with MTL kits.
The next item on our list needed to make your own juice is flavour concentrates. These basically determine the taste of your e-liquid. There are thousands of different flavours you can purchase online, but make sure you are buying from reliable sources and trustworthy companies; avoid cheap and uncertified e-liquids. A great brand is T-Juice, who’s classic flavour concentrates Red Astaire and Black and Blue can be found in our online store. Another option are one-shots, which are pre-mixed flavours that come in bottles; these are great for beginners and are sold by multiple major e-liquid manufacturers as one-shot concentrates.
An optional element to your own personal e-juice is nicotine. You can, of course, choose not to have any in your mixture and simply have fun with the great taste and cool looks of vaping. However, if you do decide to add it to your juice, there are different nicotine levels to choose from, ranging from 0-6mg.
In order to safely handle all the ingredients, you will need a couple of tools to help you mix your e-juice:
- gloves
- pipettes
- syringes
- a measuring and mixing cup
- bottles
- and labels.
We recommend that you start with some tried and tested recipes with ready measurements.
If you check out some recipes, you will find that the measurements are given in millilitres and grams. The reason for this, is so you can measure your ingredients both by weight and volume. To measure by weight, you will need a scale. However, we find measuring by volume with the help of syringes is a more straightforward method. Finding the best way to measure things out for you is something you can experiment with.
To make your vape juice, all you need to do is mix the above ingredients according to your chosen recipe using the accessories. Mix, shake well, add them into a bottle for safe storage and let them steep for at least a few hours or even days. We suggest you buy a couple 10ml sized bottles for experimentation and some 60 ml ones for when you have found a combination that you like and wish to make larger quantities. PET, HDPE, and LDPE bottles are all perfectly good. Make sure you label your bottles once you’re finished.
Steeping is an essential step of the process, as you need to let the flavours settle and blend. Some flavours need no time to steep at all and some require a few days. The right amount of time depends on the type of flavour. If you feel intimidated by determining the correct steeping method, don’t worry: Ready-made recipes show you exactly how long you need and are perfect for getting a feel for the process.
After the steeping, you are good to go. Test what you have created, see if you like it. If you decide to keep it, make sure that you know how to store your e-juice. Keep your juices in a dark, cool place; sunlight and heat do not mix well with vape liquids. If you want to find out more on how to store your liquid properly, check out this article.
Our last tip is to use e-juice calculators. These are useful for when you want to figure out how much PG/VG you need to reach a certain nicotine level.
Mixing your own e-liquid is a great way to experiment with flavours and to save some money as well. At the beginning it will definitely take some time to make your own, super-tasty e-juice, so don’t give up too early!
Martin B.
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