Something I’ve been putting off for WAY too long, it’s now getting(to put it mildly) out of control. The last time I expanded my flavor storage was around 3yrs. ago, by buying this cabinet. Thinking this would ‘future proof’ my needs, it’s become obvious something must be done! Buying just a few flavors at a time, over a period of time, this dilemma has kinda crept up on me. I’m planning to cut out some thin plywood material and add shelving to the wasted space here, but would appreciate seeing what type of bins/compartments you all actually place your concentrate bottles IN, and how you categorize them. As you can see, aside from my Flavorah, I’ve organized my stash into 3 ranges, which has worked for me, but I still have to keep most of my ‘larger’ 60 & 120ml sized bottles separate(bottom drawer/covered bins). It’s become a…well, (Clint Eastwood said it best) it’s become a cluster-fuck 
Now, I might consider changing that…separating all by flavor house, same as the FLV, or ultimately, one of you shows me something I’ve not yet thought of. So, thanks ahead of time for your ideas! 
My perfect scenario would be to have ALL of my(in use) concentrates together, and refill inventory separate. Since writing these words, it’s occurred to me that, what I COULD do, is fill and label smaller bottles from my larger ones, and continue to keep the larger ones separated into a ‘storage’ bin. Alright, I’m starting to confuse MYSELF now 
Over and Out!
HiYa @whthek
I think you’re absolutely on the right track. I suggest actual plywood - don’t try to skimp on particle board. I made a TV stand extension from 3/4 " plywood, rounded the corners, sanded the edges, and painted it matte black to match the stand, and it came out great. It’s in our living room to this day. Don’t select plywood that’s too thin - 1/2" maybe? Also I suggest not hard mounting the shelves so that you can easily turn them over if they warp a bit.
I’m a big fan of Plymor bags and totes - this is my entire stash:
I sort all my flavors by manufacturer and then bag them in alphabetical order. I then keep the manufacturers in alphabetical order - makes things easy to find. This is just the flavors of course - I have a tote each of mods, atomizers, build materials, and about 4-5 liters each of PG and VG. (Yeah - in a previous life, my business was spare parts.)
I had a couple of 120 ml containers of CAP Vanilla Custard and NY Cheesecake that came in the Capella “kettle jugs.” I finally ordered some spare 30 and 60 ml Chubby Gorilla bottles and what I had left filled one each of those bottles (about 90 mls) so now I can mix right from those without having to use pipettes. I also had a 4 oz. bottle of Flavor West Sweetener, and I bought a 240 ml Chubby and filled that perfectly, so now I’m completely off of pipettes. My own method is alphabetical order for everything. Just a few thoughts - hope it may give you some inspiration!
Yeah, I’ve got some scraps lying around from pevious projects. The plan is to cut an old tent stake, or similar piece of dowel into pins, drill into the cabinet frame, and support the new shelves just like the og’s.
Interesting, Kirk. If I could find those something like a foot wide, so as to fit roughly a dozen bottles in each, that might work.
My long term method has been to alphabetize in bins, by Fruit, Body, and Dairy, including all manufacturers. I will consider something like you do, though.
Thanks, I appreciate it!
I’m a huge fan of Sterilite latch boxes, the 6qt works great and is tall enough for 60ml and 15qt 120ml bottles. Stack easily and just plain works for me. Worth the extra money for latch lids; if you drop them the lids stay closed! Lol
Can order online at many sites like Amazon and Walmart. I buy several sizes in bulk, great for storing just about anything.
Just a thought - you can buy some wood dowel stock at Lowes or Home Depot:
https://www.lowes.com/search?searchTerm=wood+dowel
https://www.homedepot.com/s/wood%20dowel?NCNI-5
These are the totes I use - they fit everything up to a 240 ml Chubby Gorilla bottle:
https://www.costco.com/iris-129-quart-buckle-up-storage-bin-6-pack.product.100872832.html
I like to use totes and bags to help keep evaporation and odors down and flavors fresh. Measure twice - cut once! Good luck man!
I bought these 
quite awhile ago(sound similar to what you have), and they DO serve me well, for storing bulk inventory. My pet peeve is, that unless the bin is packed full, everything tips over whenever I haul one out. 
My perfect solution would be to have enough room somehow, to store all 485(and growing) flavors in racks like this. Back when I had 100, 3 of these racks worked very well for me, Letitia. Of course, then a way to keep them in the dark becomes another issue. Covered them with an old bath towel back in the day.
Bottom line is, I’ve got to do something, and soon. Thanks a bunch for your input.
Helluva an idea! Think I’ve got a 1/4" length in the garage…Somewhere!
Well, I got part of the job done, and no, I’m not colorblind I thought using what stain I DID have, was better than looking at bare plywood. I’ve doubled my stash storage on the right side, and opted to install the second new shelf on the left, for now. The spacing is uneven because of the upper og shelf being fixed, and door hinges. Anyway, if I ever need to, there’s room to add 1 more shelf up top. Still haven’t decided what my bottle bins are gonna look like.
Nice. I’d have probably just sprayed 'em matte black, but hey - money don’t grow on trees! Definitely looks like room for a couple more. Did you buy some dowel or just screw in some L brackets? I’ve been giving some thought to a stainless lab table to mix on - health issues have me a lot more concerned about a clean and sanitary station. Good job B!
I couldn’t find the length of wood dowel I thought I had, so went with the tent stake idea, Kirk. Measured depth, and wrapped tape around the drill bit so as not to go to deep.
This is my setup…small but enough for me.
Ya know, that was probably a better idea - the wood dowel could break and then you’ve got a floor full of stuff.
Thanks for the tip on the stainless. My first problem is finding a space in the house, and I’m stumped on that - can’t find a clear space - something’s gotta go!
Make some drawers. I made them in a fridge but a wooden box would work just as well.
Haha, you make it sound easy, Simon 
I remember ogling those photos of your setup years ago, but typically the smallest lumber I work with is 2x4’s 
This cabinet doesn’t have much of a structure to it…it’s one of those ‘Sauder Co.’ I assembled, which came flat in a box. I don’t think it would support all the brackets, etc. Thanks for the tease though
Now
I think I can finally offer some valuable help in return for all the help I’ve received from Y’all!
Ours is a 4 bedroom house in which we use one room. Send me your flavors. I have room for everyone’s!
My first fridge used the same nail polish racks that @SessionDrummer uses i just laid them down in a frame.
Laying them down with a draw system saves a fair bit of space
This was back in 2017
Making custom sized ones is pretty simple tho all you need is a circular saw, a drill and a pop riveter (and rivets). A normal wood blade will cut aluminium ( Aluminum for all of you muricans that can’t spell lol). Hit me up if you want to tackle it @whthek i would be happy to talk you through it.
A couple of massive advantages using a fridge (even if you have it turned off)
- negates the smell that a bunch of concentrates gives off
- keeps cool and dark so the life of your concentrates will be extended
- the foot print of you concentrate storage is greatly reduced
- easy to find the flavour you are looking for
The custom aluminium drawers I made fit around 110 30 ml bottles on each of them your cupboard could easly hold 3000 + flavours and once you pull out a draw you can see every flavour label making it a breeze to find what you are looking for.
I appreciate the thought, Simon! Let me do some figuring on what it’ll cost to buy the tracks, and Alumin(i)um. I have three of these(1ft. wide 
), but would have to buy a few more.
??? I have a whopping 45 flavors @OldGoat (EGO) says I need more custards for my flavor proclivities. I simply cannot believe I’d need so many flavors!
Why? I can see Dman ‘cuz of his reviewing… Do y’all do reviews as well? I mean, I’m gonna need a great excuse before I ask the wife for an advance on my allowance.
I JUST completed this setup 2 weeks ago. Note the nail polish carrier on the TV tray. That WAS my mixing station. The card table had been there for a few years, but was buried under “shit”.
I’m sitting at a desk where there’s a counter to my right where the bad boy PC is, and just plain CRAP on top and the shelves below. There’s a counter behind my desk with more crap on it, and that’s where the server you see on the card table sat.
There’s a story behind that server, (As it ever thus is with me) but I’ll tell that at the end of the message.
With the help of our house keeper, she cleaned and organized about 2/3 of the garage making room for the table.
@SessionDrummer will be happy to know that my now pain free hip allowed be to put some fans front and back of the RAID backup drives to the left of the wanna-be server.
Some tools from the tackle box, an RDA and some coils, and the omnipresent dog treats.
You can tell by how spotless the tackle box is, how recently I’ve gone fishing. ‘bout 20 years. Ain’t no lakes in California. Nothing but, in Michigan from whence we hail.
Thought those beggin’ strips were for me, huh. The black one is Gus, named after Gustavo Fring on Breaking Bad. He’s a pure bred Carin terrier like on Wizard of Oz. What a waste of money that was. Shoulda named him Pun. I could say, “Bad, Pun, BAD, Pun!” The other is Sybil named after a popular movie (back in the day) by the same name about a girl with 16 split personalities. She’s aptly named.
She’s a rescue. Part Yorkshire and Part Jack Terrier. Poor girl was locked up with a Chihuahua.
They have this silly idea I have treats. I love torturing small animals.
Hundreds of flavors and a few juices fermenting.
The “server”. A couple of years ago, one of my kids came out. He brought along his grand-kids, as I had never seen them. One was a 16-year-old boy. I asked him what he wanted to do for a living. Like any modern 16-year-old he said, “I don’t know.” I asked what his interests were, and he told me he liked computers. I showed him via google, what the salaries were of various options in the industry. Network engineer, security officer, what is known as a white hat hacker and more. A white hat hacker is someone who tests businesses to see if they are vulnerable to hackers. You get to hack without getting in trouble.
Not surprisingly, he liked the idea of hacking. I sent him home with a flash drive with two files on it. 1 was what’s called VirtualBox, and the other was an operating system called linux. That Linux distribution was designed with nothing in mind but hacking. 100% of every tool used for hacking.
VirtualBox is a program for running multiple operating systems on your computer at the same time. Like you can have Windows Server, a couple copies of Windows 11, and Linux. Linux is a free OS.
It also comes with a free open-source version of a 100% compatible Office. Free! Just not called office, it’s called LibreOffice and is available for Windows as well. Linux is NOT for the faint of heart. Linux too, is open source. So, what’s open source? To write a program you, well, program. AKA Coding. You cannot get the code to any Microsoft product. Or Google, or any other software that you pay for.
However, if a program is free, it is probably open source. You can get the code and modify it and post it for download and installation. You cannot sell it, but you can charge to support it. Linux is open source as are all the applications with it or can be downloaded and installed. And there are THOUSANDS!
So, the kid got home and attempted to install VirtualBox only to find his computer was too old to support it. I bought him a new computer that did support it. I spent months making YouTube videos to teach them how to install VirtualBox, how to hack… I also made videos on how to install Windows Server to make it an authentication server and more, lest he wants to investigate a network engineer. Very detailed. I would go into specifics, but I don’t want your eyes to glaze over or insult your knowledge.
18 MONTHS LATER, he did not look at any of the videos. I gave him deadlines and told him I expected him to prove to me that by X date he had finished one of the videos. I can tell if someone looked at a video through YouTube and not even one God damn time, did he look at any!
I asked his dad about it, and he said that, behind his back he called him the Burger King because he figured the kid would never amount to anything. His sister, on the other hand, has a full ride scholarship and is going to be a forensics scientist. His (now) 8-year-old brother is a freaking genius. And I mean this kid researched for over a month before ordering the parts and built his own PC. I don’t believe the 16-year-old is stupid, just lazy. He is one of those that play video games all the time. His Mama won’t take the fucking game box from him!
Finally, two years into it I got frustrated enough to say, “Fuck it go flip burgers.” I’m not proud of that, but I told his dad to ship the PC back to me. Then the kid said that computer was so slow. When I got the computer, I discovered that it had some bad memory. He could have mentioned it. He could have made some effort.
So, now it’s a “Server” in as much as it runs Windows 2022 server and has a 6 TB RAID drive to store my backups. RAID = 3 drives configured in such a way that if one drives fails the data is still available. Replace the bad drive while the beast is running and you’re golden again.
It’s just an old HP slimline pro something-or-other designed just for browsing the web. That thing won’t play games…
@PaulyWalnuts custard tastes can vary wildly between people. It can be very hard to say exactly WHAT flavors would work for you or not. I know you’ve got some of these, but many/most of these will increase your Custard Experiences………..
CAP VC1
CAP VC2
CAP French Vanilla
CAP NY Cheesecake
CAP Sweet Cream
CAP Sugar Cookie
CAP Butter Cream
CAP Smooth Custard
TPA VC
TPA VC2
TPA Vanilla Swirl
TPA Sweet Cream
TPA Bavarian Cream
TPA Vanillin
TPA Cheesecake Graham Crust
TPA Milk/Dairy
TPA Cotton Candy (EM)
TPA Marshmallow
FA Almond
FA Custard Premium
FA Madagascar
FA Marshmallow
INW Custard
FLV Custard
FLV Vanilla Pudding
FLV Cream
LB VIC
VTA Banana Custard
VTA Warm Custard
FW Sweet Cream
FW Yellow Cake
FW Bavarian Cream
Well, I guess you wouldn’t need any sweetener with that one. Hell, you’d use it AS the sweetener!
Why get the flavors from different mfg’s? Do they taste that much different, or mix well with one flavor and not another?
Correct the Cotton Candy is actually EM, which is a sweetener, or maybe more technically a sweetening enhancer, and if used much above 0.50-0.75%, it can start to mute things. I know a lot of people just pump in the CAP Super Sweet, but sometimes sucralose isn’t what’s required. Now as far as all the other flavors, and which one, from which MFG, you don’t NEED any of them, BUT, yes, flavors, even identically named, can vary wildly from MFG to MFG. One Bavarian Cream will often times NOT be like another one, etc.
But I couldn’t look you in the eye, and DEMAND that you get EVERY Sweet Cream you can lay your hands on, and then propose to tell you that NOW, you can REALLY make a custard. I just know someone else asked me a similar question that you did, and I still had that list open, so I pasted it here. ANY, or ALL would “enhance” your ability to make DIFFERENT styled custards, and maybe, just maybe, one that you would like. More flavors doesn’t make anything better, and it surely doesn’t make anything easier, BUT, it CAN give you choices…….