I’m excited to share that I’m in the process of partnering with a local vape shop, and they’ve chosen 6 of my e-liquids to stock—3 fruity and 3 dessert flavors. They want to offer these in both freebase and nic salts, which is where I could use some advice.
I’m confident with the freebase versions, but I’m not as experienced when it comes to nic salts, especially with dessert flavors. The fruity ones should be straightforward enough, but how do I go about converting dessert flavors to nic salts while keeping the flavors spot on?
Any tips or suggestions on the best approach would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help!
Nicotine salts tend to have less effect on the flavourings in e-liquid than freebase nicotine it is a little weird to have less flavour when using salts when mixing at the same concentration.
If you are mixing for pods and using high nic levels for the salts you will have to account for the lower wattage that a pod device uses and use more flavouring - there is no hard and fast rule you will have to test each of your mixes in a low wattage device and find the right level, that said dessert/complex flavour profiles will not always work out as well in a pod as they do in a sub-ohm device.
I have transferred a few mixes to pods from subohm and they usually end up quite different YMMV . Mix up a oneshot and try it at different (higher) %'s than you normally would just treat it like you would a new flavour and try 25% / 50% /75% more than you normally mix that mix at and dial it in by testing.
Sorry I can’t be more helpful
Edit: it will also depend on which salt you are using here is some info on various salts
Congrats @OldGoat. As far as the Salts mixes, typically they are used at a fairly higher rate than freebase, and can add it’s flavor into the mix, and can also dilute the existing mix, due to the increased amount of it compared to freebase. Possibly increasing the overall flavors some in the Salts mixes may be required.
I’ve been using salts (9mg) since I started mixing and I can’t taste it; that being said ymmv.
I do know when I started mixing I discovered it was the freebase nic that was the off note I couldn’t get away from when using commercial juice. Out of curiosity I mixed 10ml of the same recipe, one salts and one freebase; threw out the freebase mix after the steep. Salts will eventually turn an orange tinge as it ages. The mix will turn bright orange eventually if it gets too much light or heat such as sunlight. Doesn’t seem to get harsh or peppery though the flavor will change a tad. Nothing offensive, just different.
Thanks guys. It feels great to have people coming to me asking for my juice. All that work paying off feels great.
I have done my Sakura Cherry Fizz and Snow Ape in MTL nic salts before and I know they work well. I think that my Yogi the Pink Bear should work at x1.5 flavour.
It is the dessert stuff that I’m worried about. I am mixing them at x2 flavour and steeping them for 7 days to see what happens. I just hate that I have to use a new pod for Xros mini everytime I test a flavour. Those things are not cheap.
The wait is also killing me.
7 days is a long time to wait and if they don’t work out and I need to change something, that means 7 more days.
I want to get these juices on the selves ASAP.
Just remember, salt mixes are typically used in pods, which have much lower output than your general RTA/RDA in terms of vapour production, and in the vapour is where the flavour is (one of the major reasons I have not gone to pods as I am a flavour chaser). So when developing for a pod, you need to bump your flavour quite a bit, and this holds especially true on desserts, more than fruits. I would for example (when I was still mixing for shops) bump a fruity by about 1.5x for a 18mg mix, but a dessert needs even more oomph, so I used to bump them about 2x normal. Now if you venture into the 30mg and 50mg space, that’s when things become hairy as all that nicotine has a serious impact on flavour and to bump a dessert high enough for a 50mg juice is a tricky one, even if you use VG Salts, as you run out of PG profiling even on a 50/50 mix.
Hey @KiZ Good to see you back on and sharing your wisdom.
I was thinking of 2x and working backwards but I have a mix that has 7% French Vanilla.
Fresh, it vaped as I wanted but now it is dominating the mix in this pod
10mg nic salt
50/50
So maybe double my other flavours or even lower the French Vanilla, maybe in half?
I’ve got an RDA coming so I can test the mix properly, I’m worried it’s not what I wanted but that might give me a better indication of what’s going on
Yeah, the 2x was a rough estimate. One needs to know your flavours to determine how much to actually push it up. For example, I use quite a bit of sweetener in my one-shots to clients (only way I can still resell, thanks to our government), but if I was to make a nic salts solution, I would not bump my normal 1.5% CAP SS to 3% as that would be too much, I take it up to 2.2% and maybe on a 50mg mix I’d take it to 3% (which is still waaayy lower than some imported juices, some of which I heard are on 8-10%). So you need to look at your recipe holistically and determine which flavours you want to bump by how much. More than happy to help if you PM me with the details on the recipe - promise not to use it myself, that’s not how I am.
Ok, thanks for the info, unfortunately I cannot show this particular recipe to anyone, it was given to me and I promised to never show anyone but I have a few others that I haven’t tested in the pod yet so will definitely take you up on that offer on those when I get around to testing, appreciate it
Totally understandable. Look, a lot of it depends on what level nic you’re looking at. 18mg vs 30mg vs 50mg will differ. And as mentioned, it is also flavour dependant.
