Say you purchased a new, fresh 500ml bottle of NIC, you could pick up (9) 60ml amber glass bottles, and break it up into them. Leave (8) in deep freeze, while only working out of one of them, until empty, then you could start on the next 60ml bottle, and so on.
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Thanks @SessionDrummer would you suggest freezing it and hoping it can be saved or just buy a new bottle? Also have I got to wait for the nic to come to room temperature before adding it to a mix ?
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Great questions, and all I can offer is my opinion. I’d say toss it after you get some fresh NIC. Once it turns, it never comes back.
I also HIGHLY recommend using gloves, and eye protection when breaking down your NIC for safety. Some people use every time they mix with it, but I don’t, but I ALWAYS do when breaking my NIC down.
As far as the bringing up to room temp, that will depend. I tried using 100%VG NIC for a bit, but it was hard to work with, and prevent hot spots (not thoroughly shaken, with high/low NIC). I’m not PG sens so I switched to 100% PG NIC, and never looked back.
I take my NIC out of the freezer, shake it, use it, put it right back in the freezer, with no waiting for anything to warm up. Easy peasy.
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@SessionDrummer has this down regarding storage and usage. Nothing to add or detract there. On a separate thought, I switched from free base to salts because throat irritation increased over time after quitting the analogs. Analogs have chemicals to anesthetize the throat and mask throat irritation. Obviously, e-juice does not.
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@Jammer1 let you in on an “incident” that happened to me, a seasoned mixer/vaper/DIY’er.
Was breaking down a gallon of 100mg NIC into bottles, filling, capping, and repeating. The gallon just came out of the freezer and was cold, and was slowly warming as I broke it down. I left very LITTLE headspace (air space) in each bottle, capped, and repeated. Before I could finish I had a cap POP off the bottle (assuming expansion as it was coming up to room temp, investigated, and “chinked” a bottle into another, and a few of the bottles BROKE. Not a safe thing to have happen. Luckily was wearing gloves, goggles, and cleaned it up safely.
Leave at least 1 inch or more headspace in each bottle, and if you’re super concerned like me, you can top them off with Argon, which is heavier than air, and will displace it OUT of the bottle, and then cap off.
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That sounds like you were very lucky and had the PPE SAVE you from something that could have been very fatal. I wear gloves all the time when handling nic or just mixing in general but hadn’t thought of wearing eye wear , which is a very good point. May I ask what does the argon do? Isn’t that a welding gas ?
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Are salts more expensive ?
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At liquid Wholesalers salts are one dollar more for 120ml @ 100mg/ml.
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@Jammer1 “blanketing” may seem extreme, but if you have lots of bottles in a deep freeze, extra precautions never hurts. It blankets the NIC, or tops off the bottle in Argon gas, displacing ALL of the air, and therefore allowing you to leave as much headspace as you want, with no concerns that your NIC will be exposed to air during it’s deep freeze.
https://www.amazon.com/ArT-Wine-Preserver-Enjoy-Your/dp/B01MEHJCQ2
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I take it salts are alot smoother than freebase then ?
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Thank you for your reply, will have to see if I can get here over the pond
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They are smoother. I think “alot” is a good description but I can’t qualify that.
When salts where first introduced they were sold in pod systems. The idea was that pods would be used by folks just quitting analogs and would require greater concentrations of nicotine to be satisfied. Manufacturers could increase the concentration of the nicotine while not introducing greater irritation to the throat. A myth developed that salts were only to be used in pods. Salt at 2mg/ml is the same dose of nic as free base 2mg/ml.
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@SessionDrummer has given good advice and you nic may be oxidized.
But the other thing I am thinking about are hot spots in your nic. Early in my mixing das 5 years ago, I ran into an issue with hot spots in my nic that was suspended in pg. I had given a “good” shake and started to dispense nic over an extended period. All my mixes from that batch were jacked up.
The following batch was fine so it led me to the theory that I really didn’t shaken up my nic or it settled a bit.
Although it doesn’t make complete sense…it does to me…my nic wasn’t shaken up well enough even though it was pg based. If using vg based nic then you need to be even more diligent…and you really have to have a really good shake.
At this point I always have my nic in the freezer in smaller bottles…30-120ml bottles. I mix all of my recpies first without nic. Then ready to add nic I shake up my nic really good…then roll through adding nic to about 18-28 separately prepared mixes.
My method doesn’t match everyone else’s methodology but for me I am sensitive to nic. I would recommend doing a couple test batches with you nic…and shake the shit out of you nic.
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I do shake my nic but because of the density of the vg it never seems to move in the bottle very much. I went down the vg route knowing that pg is a flavour carrier , I didn’t want the flavour of the nicotine to carry into my mixes quite so severely.that may be a myth but it made sense in my head. Are you saying that the “hotspots” you describe a like bits where the nicotine isn’t mixed in to the base very well ?
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Yup. And I would have thought it possible with pg, but it happened to me.
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@Jammer1, don’t worry, you’ll be fine with no added NIC taste by switching to 100%PG NIC if you choose to. A lot easier to work with, and safer, IMO, because it mixes much easier, even when stored in the freezer.
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Here here! VG is that guy that doesn’t play well with others. He’s necessary but a pita.
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I might have to get a bottle and compare salts with base
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