How To Make E-Juice
DIY Video & Guide

How To Make E-Juice Guide

You may already purchase premium E-liquid and don't see any reason to make your own but there's actually a lot of reasons to start making your own E-liquid.

Cost is a big factor for a lot of people. Premium E-liquid is expensive and with all of the several devices on the market that burn through liquid quickly, the cost of buying liquid adds up. On average you are paying one dollar for each milliliter of premium liquid. When you can pay anywhere from one to three dollars for each thirty milliliter bottle that you mix. Over time you're looking to save a lot more money when you mix your own liquid.

The ability to control your liquid can be appealing to a lot of people. With D.I.Y. you have complete control over what flavorings you use, as well as the amount of propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, and nicotine that's used. You can customize your E-liquid to any preference you may have. If you enjoy vaping as a hobby, then you're probably already used to building your own coils, and maybe even building your own mods and devices. If you're just getting started this is still an incredible road to go down within the hobby.

Now you have the ability to take it one step further and make your own E-liquid. The upcoming F.D.A. regulations are a big factor for a lot of people to move into D.I.Y. . Depending on how things go down your atomizers, batteries, devices and premium liquid will all be subject to harsh regulations and may even be banned altogether. This will leave vapers stuck with very few appealing legal options like cigalikes.

Luckily all of the ingredients used to make your own E-liquid will still be obtainable, so you can keep creating your own liquid and keep vaping.

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Ingredients:

There’s a few ingredients necessary to start mixing E-liquid.

· Vegetable Glycerin, also known as V.G., is a thick liquid that's the base for your E-Liquid. V.G. is naturally sweet and it could be vaped on its own without any flavors or nicotine.

Get your Non-GMO Vegetable Glycerin right now cheap!

· Propylene Glycol, also known as P.G., is a thin liquid that binds to the flavors as a flavor carrier. This provides the throat hit quality to E-liquid, but it produces very little vapor on its own.

Buy your propylene glycol at a discount now!

· Nicotine can be bought in a P.G. or V.G. base, and it comes in a variety of strengths. It adds an extra throat hit quality to the E-liquid when vaped. You do not however need nicotine to make an E-liquid mixture. If you decide to purchase some nicotine, you need to keep it in a dark and cool environment such as a fridge or freezer. E-liquids that contain nicotine also need to be kept in a dark and cool environment.

Buy your unflavored Nicotine here for cheap!

· Flavoring is typically P.G. based, and is what provides juice mixtures with those lovely tastes. If you want to taste anything in your juice than you're probably going to want to include some flavoring. Both V.G., P.G., and nicotine are pretty tasteless, and the only way to bring out some flavor is by adding your own.

There are a number of manufacturers out there, and depending on who you go with the flavor might vary slightly due to variations in manufacturing methods and procedures. Be sure to to experiment and try out different brands. If you're looking to just get started right away however, a great flavor shop is the Flavor Apprentice and Liquid Barns.

Here's a link to the Flavor Apprentice Line

Here's a link to Liquid Barns site

Mixing Methods:

Strawberry Cream Recipe:

The recipe we'll use in this tutorial will be a strawberry cream. The strawberry cream recipe will use flavors entirely from the Flavor Apprentice, with strawberry ripe at 5%, the Bavarian cream at 3% and graham cracker clear at 2%.

This is what a typical E-liquid recipe looks like and you may be wondering what do the percentages mean. Let’s look at a typical thirty milliliter bottle of liquid. This thirty millimeter bottle would be considered one hundred percent or one whole. The recipe is a breakdown of what each flavors percentages in the total mix. So of the entire 100%, 5% is strawberry flavoring, 3% percent is cream flavoring and 2% percent is graham cracker flavoring.

So to find out exactly how much flavoring to use, you just find what the percentages of the whole mix. If you're mixing a 30mL bottle then 2% will be 0.6 milliliters, 3% is 0.9 milliliters and 5% is 1.5 milliliters.

Now you have your measurements of how much flavoring to use when you want to make a thirty 30mL bottle.

If you wanted to make a larger mix at 60mL, the recipe easily scales up. Just fine the percentages of 60mL and you'll have the measurements for each flavor. This works just as easily to scale the recipe down to smaller batches like 10mL. No matter what size the batch is, the amount of flavoring used will be directly proportional to the size of the mix. E-liquid recipes are shown in percentages, so they're consistent no matter what size you decide to make.

V.G and P.G Ratio:

When making your liquid you have complete control over the ratio of the V.G. to P.G. This ratio allows you to customize how much cloud production and throat hit you get from your liquid.

As you increase the V.G amount you lose the throat hit quality, but you can make a mix almost entirely out of V.G.

As you increase the P.G. amount, the throat hit increases quite a bit to a point of harshness but the amount of cloud production is reduced sharply.

A great ratio to mix at is 70/30 V.G. to P.G. ratio - 70VG & 30PG. This provides a great balance between throat hit and cloud production, and it doesn't take very long to steep. If you decide to mix at this ratio you'll find yourself running through V.G. must faster than P.G.

Nicotine:

Now let's talk about nicotine.

When you purchase nicotine it’s available in a P.G. or V.G., base and comes in a variety of strengths. V.G. based nicotine is good if you're looking to make Max V.G. mixes, where you maximize the amount of V.G. in the mix so the only P.G. is from the flavors.

The problem with V.G. based nicotine is that the V.G. is very thick and the nicotine solution needs to be shaken frequently. This is to help prevent concentrated areas of nicotine from building up inside the bottle. You want your nicotine to be consistent throughout and well shaken, or else V.G based nicotine's can lead to hotspots(concentrated areas of nicotine).

P.G. based nicotine is much easier to handle for beginners. Since the liquid is thinner, it’s easier to shake the nicotine until it's consistent throughout. You still need to shake P.G. based nicotine's thoroughly however so the nicotine won't sink to the bottom of the solution.

If you buy 24mg strength nicotine and you want to make your mixes at 12mg, you’ll just use less nicotine in the overall mixture.

Mixing by volume:

When you mix by volume you're measuring the amount of space the liquid occupies.

There is many tools you can use the mix by volume like graduated cylinders, beakers, syringes and pipettes.

Mixing by volume can be easier for beginners to get a grasp of measuring and mixing the liquids, but it causes the mixing process to take more time. If you're mixing several different flavors, you need to wash everything between mixes which is both tedious and time consuming.

When you mix with a weighing scale, it’s much more accurate than mixing by volume. This allows for more control over the measurements, since you're mixing directly into the target bottle and measuring the weight down to one hundredth of a gram. There is much less clean up required when mixing with the scale and you can produce more mixes much faster.

Mixing by weight:

While it may seem that mixing by weight is the best method for mixing liquid, each method has its merits.

When you're mixing with a scale you're measuring the weight or the mass of the liquid that you're mixing. This means that the milliliters measurements for liquids must be converted into grams.

This conversion is easily done with a calculator. It's also important to note that different liquids weigh different amounts. When weighing water, each milliliter is equal to one gram. So fifty millimeters of water is fifty grams. Propylene glycol is a little more dense than water, so each milliliter weighs 1.038 grams. Vegetable glycerin is a lot more dense than water so each milliliter weighs 1.26 grams.

It's also important to note that different strengths of nicotine weigh differently. Most flavors are P.G. based though there are some that are V.G. based, and every flavor has a different weight. Their weight is dependent on the densities of the flavor's compounds. The easiest method is to assume all flavors weigh the same as propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin, so they're consistent with every mix.

Calculators are used to convert your recipe into the measurements you'll need to mix your liquid. There’s a variety of E-liquid calculators available online and to download onto your phone or computer.

We'll use the calculator on the E-liquid recipes website HERE.

This calculator is beginner friendly and gives measurements for volume and weight mixing.

(1) First enter the name of your recipe.

(2) Next enter the amount that you want to make. I'll make a 30mL bottle so I'll put 30.

(3) Then enter your desired nicotine strength. 3mg is a good starting nicotine strength.

(4) Enter your desired P.G. V.G ratio. 70/30 is a good mixture of P.G. to V.G.

(5) Now enter the strength of the nicotine that you're using, and the P.G. or V.G. content of that nicotine.

(6) Click the Add flavor button to open the flavor section.

(7) Enter the name of the flavor, what percentage will use that flavor and whether the flavor is P.G. or V.G. based. Do this for all three flavors putting strawberry ripe at 5%, The Bavarian cream at 3% and gram Cracker at 2%.

(8) When you're done entering the flavors, save your recipe and you're all set.

(9) The calculator breaks down your recipe and gives measurements in volume and for mixing by weight.

Mixing Instructions

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Now that we have all of our measurements, we’re ready to mix.

Before you start mixing, it's important to thoroughly shake your nicotine. If you keep your nicotine in a fridge or freezer, let it sit out for a bit for it to reach room temperature before mixing and to make shaking easier. Shake the nicotine before every bottle you mix, since the nicotine can sink to the bottom of the solution. It's also good practice to shake your flavors as well. Some flavors have compounds that separate, so give each bottle a good shake before mixing.

1. First turn on your scale and place your bottle in the center of the scale, press the tare button to return the weight to zero. This allows you to measure each ingredient individually.

2. Starting the mixing process with pouring the nicotine first is best-practice. If you mess up and accidentally put too much, you can just take it out and it won't ruin the mix.

· We'll need 0.93 grams of nicotine. So we'll slowly drop the nicotine in the bottle, slowing down as we get close to the target weight. If you overshoot its okay as long as its within an acceptable margin of error.

· Press the tare button to reset the weight to zero.

3. Next add the flavoring. Starting with the strawberry ripe, we need 1.5 grams of strawberry ripe in the mix. Squirt bottles makes adding the flavors much easier.

· If you're flavors are in glass bottles, then you'll need pipettes to transfer the liquid. Be sure not to add too much flavoring at a time. The scale needs a second to update and you don't want to add too much.

· Once we get close to 1.5 grams, we'll slow down adding just a drop at a time until we hit the target weight.

4. Then tare the scale, and add 0.9 grams of the Bavarian cream. You can start to see the different liquid separated in the solution as you add the Bavarian cream.

· Tare the scale when you reach 0.9 grams.

5. Now add .6g of the graham cracker clear. This is a small amount, so just add a few drops at a time until you hit the target weight then tare the scale.

6. With the flavorings all set, it's time to add the propylene glycol. The P.G. is very thin and flows quickly, so try to add it slowly to the mix. Having P.G. in squirt bottles makes it easier to control the flow during the pouring process. Slow down when you get close to the target weight then tare the scale when you're done.

7. Finally, it's time to add the vegetable glycerin. We'll add 26.49 grams of the V.G. It takes a bit to add the V.G. since it's so thick and it makes up 70% of the mix.

Be careful with squirt bottles and V.G., If you squeeze too hard you can pop the cap off and spill the liquid everywhere.

Once you get close to the target weight, slow down and add a few drops at a time.

8. Now the mix is all set, and it's time to add the cap. Add the dropper cap without the glass dropper. This helps leave room in the bottle which makes shaking the bottle easier. We'll add the glass dropper when we're ready to vape the liquid after its done steeping.

· After mixing, the liquids may separate. You can see the denser V.G. liquids have sunk to the bottom, with the flavors and the P.G. sitting at the top. This is why shaking is necessary after mixing.

9. Shake the liquid well; turning it different ways. You don't have to tire out your arm or shake it for too long. Generally a 20 second shake works fine.

· Once the mix is shaken the V.G., P.G., flavors and nicotine are more uniform throughout the mix.

10. The liquids can still separate over time so the mix should be shaken periodically.

· Now the liquid will start the steeping or aging process. As you saw before, the V.G. separates easily from the rest of the mix, and it takes time for the V.G. to bind to the P.G.

Steeping:

Steeping, also known as aging or curing, is one of the most important processes when mixing E-liquid. This is the process in which the liquids in the mix become more homogeneous and uniform throughout.

There's a lot going on in the bottle when the steeping process is occurring.  All the different flavor molecules start to bind together which begin to form and produce new flavors. These flavors, and the rest of the P.G. solutions, typically take a lot of time to bind into the V.G. mixture.

There are several processes available that provide some forms of speed steeping, but these work with varying results.

Breathing:

Breathing is when you leave the cap off the bottle and allow air to reach the mix. This is really only meant for certain flavors that can benefit from evaporation. There's not that many flavors that require this.

Many fruit flavors are volatile molecules which means they escape easily from the mixture into the air. This means you're losing the flavor while it's breathing. It's best to leave the cap on and keep your mixes closed to preserve the flavor.

Water Bath:

A water bath is another method of speed steeping. Using a candle warmer to heat up a cup of water, the warm water heats up the liquid to help thin up the V.G. so it binds easier to the rest of the mix. While this does help thin out the V.G. solution, excessive heat can ruin flavors. This should only be in short intervals daily of about 30 minutes or less. Too high of a temperature can also ruin the nicotine in the mix.

Pickup a candle warmer here & beaker here

Ultrasonic Cleaner:

An ultrasonic cleaner is an interesting method of speed steeping. It's a small appliance that provides small pulses to help shake the liquid in a warm water bath. This can be very helpful, however be sure to only use room temperature water so it doesn't damage the liquid. This method is great if you're mixing multiple bottles at once.

Grab your Ultrasonic cleaner HERE

The best steeping method is time. As you gain experience as a mixer and try out different methods, you’ll find that time really does work the best.

Storing and Supplying:

Now let's talk about storing your E-liquid and supplies.

On the Flavor Apprentice website they state that flavors can generally last up to six months when stored in glass bottles. This depends on the type of flavor. Flavors can be kept in the refrigerator, but this can cause certain flavors to crystallize like menthol flavors. These can be warmed up to heat the crystals until they dissolve back into the solution however.

Fruit and cream flavors:

Fruit and cream flavors behave differently, and it's important to know how they react when storing and using the flavors.

Fruit flavors are made up of molecules that are considered volatile which means they're unstable in a solution. This allows the flavor molecules to easily escape from the flavor concentrate, or from your mixes, which causes the flavor to become muted.

Cream flavors:

Cream flavors are generally made up of heavier molecules, and are generally less volatile than fruit flavors. Since these cream molecules are larger and more complex, they take more time to bind with other flavors and the V.G. in the mix, which increases steep time.

You should still keep cream flavors and mixes with the lids close tight anyway. When you mix the fruit and cream flavors together, the volatile fruit flavors can escape the mixture leaving behind just the cream. The cap needs to be kept on and the mixture needs time for the fruit and cream molecules to interact and create new flavor molecules.

Make sure you keep the caps on your nicotine at all times, and limit the amount of time the nicotine bottle is exposed to the air. One thing to keep in mind is the air that's trapped inside the nicotine bottle. This can oxidize the nicotine.

As you continue to use up your nicotine, there will be more air in the bottle. This exposes the nicotine to more oxygen over time that will degrade the nicotine faster as you use it. The best method to avoid this is to take your nicotine and transfer into smaller glass bottles, filling them to the very top.

*QUICK TIP*

Only use one of the small bottles at a time while mixing so the rest of the batch is preserved.

This will help keep your nicotine fresh for a long time.

One common question a lot of beginners have is "how is a recipe created?" For instance how did we arrive with the recipe in this guide?

Mixing E-liquid is simple enough, but creating an E-liquid recipe is a lot more work.

When you start buying flavors you should make small batches with single flavors to better understand the flavor. You can pick a percentage at random or go off of a percentage you can find on flavor resource websites like E-liquid recipes or reddit. Either way you need a jumping off point to start testing the flavors.

When testing the flavors and making flavor notes, there’s a lot of questions you should ask yourself.

How does the flavor taste?

Are they natural tasting candy like?

How accurate are the flavors to the description of the flavor? If the manufacturer says it should taste like an apple, but you find it taste like a pear, then that's not accurate to the description.

How strong is the flavor? This helps guide you to find the right percentage of your flavor to use.

Does it taste weak? Maybe you can boost the percentage up. If you find it's too overwhelming maybe drop the percentage considerably.

Pay attention to where the flavor hits on your tongue and how it interacts when it's of vaped. Some really stand out on the inhale, others on the exhale. These notes are what you need to really start developing a recipe.

For example, these are five different strawberry flavors from four different flavor manufacturers. Capella sweet strawberry is a juicy and sweet almost natural strawberry. Flavor Apprentice Strawberry is a sweet and hard candy strawberry.

Liquid barn Strawberry is like a sweet gummy candy strawberry. Flavora Strawberry is a mellow jam like strawberry. Flavor apprentice ripe strawberry is a very natural sweet and mellow strawberry flavor.

Each one of these is a strawberry, yet each one is completely unique and can change a recipe completely.

From the short descriptions you can get a pretty good idea of what each one tastes like and can start to build ideas on how you want to utilize them in a recipe.

Experiment with different versions of a flavor until you find exactly what you're looking for. A well-crafted recipe will layer the flavors in a way that makes the vaping experience much more enjoyable. These are examples of some of the different layers in a recipe. There's the top notes, the base notes, the correlating notes and supporting notes.

To help visualize how to build a recipe, imagine a pyramid. A recipe can be as simple as two flavors with one top note and one base note.

For simple strawberry cream, Flavor Apprentice strawberry ripe would be the top note with Bavarian cream as the base note. You want the strawberry coming in on the inhale with the base cream to smooth out the exhale. Adding graham cracker to the mix as a supporting note helps to bridge the cream base to the strawberry top note.

The graham cracker has a buttery smoothness that works with the base and does not overwhelm the strawberry, but instead helps connect it to the base.

A complicated recipe can have many flavors layered together in different ways. There can be multiple top notes combined with a supporting note bridging the top notes with the base, and an additional complimentary notes. 

A complex recipe does not guarantee a great recipe however!

It takes a lot of testing and understanding of each flavor to make a complex recipe, which can take dozens of versions just to get right. The important thing is that you start simple with your flavors and recipes before you start building too complex of a recipe.

There's many ways to start the recipe creation process. You can use your flavor notes, find real world inspiration, or try cloning existing E-liquids.

Using the information gathered through the flavor testing and note taking process, start pairing flavors together at a percentage that you think will work. Test these mixes when they're fresh and after a few days to track the progress. This is the jumping off point to make the recipe just right based off your notes.

For instance with strawberry ripe and Bavarian cream, they're great individually at around 5%, but mixing them together was better to drop the cream to three percent.

If there seems to be something missing, bring in a supporting note. In this case, bring in the graham cracker at three percent but then changed it Two percent. To arrive at this recipe it took four versions of trial and error. A lot of inspiration for a recipe can come from things you eat every day. Whether it's your favorite dessert or snack, pay attention to the flavors that occur in that food and match them to flavors you're familiar with in your collection.

Let's Do A Quick Experiment

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Imagine eating a cinnamon roll with icing. Ask yourself questions about the different flavors occurring and break them down.

What those the dough tastes like?

Is it soft and yeast like or flaky?

Is the cinnamon paired with brown sugar or white sugar?

Is the icing a vanilla icing or a cream cheese icing?

What's the top note, the icing or the cinnamon filling?

I made two example flavor pyramids to help build a cinnamon roll recipe. On the left you can see the top now is the cinnamon and brown sugar, with the cream cheese and white sugar in the icing as the supporting note to a doughy base. On the right, the cream cheese and white sugar icing is the top note, with the cinnamon in brown sugar as supporting notes to a doughy base.

Both of these are different takes on the same thing and they are two completely different recipes. This is how you have to visualize your recipes when you start to create them. Try to figure out what your top notes and base notes are and start to match them to real flavors to see if they can be created.

Cloning an already existing E-liquid is a great way for beginners to understand how to create a recipe. When trying your favorite flavors, pay attention to what's happening as you vape.

What are the top notes and base notes? What's the inhale and exhale like? What else is supporting the top and base in the liquid?

Cloning your favorite E-liquids depends heavily on your flavor notes and testing. Once you're more familiar with your collection of flavors, it will become easier to identify what flavors are used in your favorite E-liquids.

When you're researching recipes pay attention to any flavor notes that are included and any feedback from the community to gauge how good the recipe is.

How Much Money Can You Save?

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Cost is a big factor in mixing your own liquid. On average premium E-liquid bottles range from$15 - $30. The cost works out to about 50 cents - $1.20 / mL of juice that you vape.

Whereas if you were to buy your own materials and ingredients, you could save a substantial amount of money annually on juice!​

Here's a breakdown of everything you'll need to start mixing right away. This includes vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, nicotine, Flavors, glass bottles, disposable pipettes, a scale and gloves. With all of this you can immediately start mixing your own liquid.

*COST IS ABOUT 40% LESS THAN VIDEO'S PRICE IF YOU BUY THE REQUIRED MATERIALS THROUGH OUR AFFILIATE LINKS*

Materials You'll Need

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Liquids - $40

Get your Non-GMO Vegetable Glycerin right now cheap! - $10.99

Buy your propylene glycol at a discount now! - $12.99

Buy your unflavored Nicotine here for cheap! - $8.99

Flavoring from Flavor Apprentice -  $1- $4

Flavoring from Liquid Barn - $1 - $4

Tools - $50

Buy your American Weight Scale LB-501 HERE - $24.99

Buy your disposal pipettes HERE - $6.99

Buy your pack of 15 mL tinted dripper glass bottles HERE - $10.99

Buy your latex rubber gloves HERE - $8.99

+ additional items, not necessary

Pickup a candle warmer here & cylinder beaker here

Grab your Ultrasonic cleaner HERE

Now the startup cost may seem steep for some with all of these items adding up to about $90, but let's break down what you can do with all of these ingredients.

With all of these supplies you can make about 47 - 30mL bottles of E-liquid. That's with a nicotine strength of 3mg, and using 10% flavoring in each bottle. You can make 47 bottles before you run out of V.G. and flavoring, but you'll have plenty of P.G. and nicotine left over for other mixes.

The total cost of the liquid in each 30mL bottle is $1.21. For an entire 30mL mix of E-liquid, it's just barely over $1, compared to the dollar per mL price of premium E-liquid. This factors in the disposable use of the pipettes and gloves, as well as continued use of the scale per bottle.

The most expensive thing is the glass bottle itself, but if you wash and recycle your bottles this won't be an issue. Even with the cost of each glass bottle factored in, each 30mL mix and bottle only costs one dollar and ninety two cents. If you vape even two 30mL bottles a week, this is still enough to make for six months.

It's pretty easy to argue that D.I.Y. e-juice is far cheaper in the long run than buying premium liquid at market price. You can make your own liquid that is just as great as the premium stuff, and even better with experience and practice.

There's a variety of starter kits available as well which come with the tools, liquids, and flavorings that allow you to start mixing right away. Try out the liquid barn starter kit as it works really well for beginners.Their kit comes with some high quality nicotine and flavorings, but unfortunately it's geared toward volumetric measuring, not mixing by weight.

Now for some general tips and frequently asked questions.

1. Is Nicotine needed to make E-juice?

2. What order should the ingredients be mixed in?

3. Is it okay to mix by volume?