A Beginner's Guide to DIY Vaping

The world of DIY vaping may seem a little daunting, but we’re here to show you that it isn’t. With the disposables ban coming up next week, we figured some of you may be starting to wonder what lies behind the veil of DIY.

Simply put, it’s a wealth of choices. Once you’re a proficient mixer (which you will be soon enough), you will be able to create your own recipes, perfectly attuned to your tastes and preferences. 

You can get as specific with your VG/PG ratio as you like, add all the Koolada you fancy and have fun recreating your favourite drinks or desserts in e-liquid form. 

With the looming disposables ban as well as the unknown of next year’s Tobacco & Vapes Bill, there’s never been a better moment to get into DIY.

Let us show you how!

 What You Will Need 

First off, let’s start with the ingredients and equipment you’ll need. Not to worry, it’s nothing too scary!

So, e-liquid is made up of 4 main ingredients. You’ll have a base mix made up of PG and VG (around 70% of the total recipe), then your flavour concentrates and nicotine! 

Lucky for you, we at DarkStar have been DIY vapers for a long time, and stock everything you’ll need under our ‘DIY’ header on the siter. We’ve also popped a handy list for you here:

• Propylene Glycol

• Vegetable Glycerine

• Flavour Concentrates

• Nicotine

• Syringes

• Bottles

• Kitchen Roll

• Protective equipment eg. chemical resistant gloves

Check out our full range of mixing accessories here. 

Choose Your Recipe

When it comes to recipes, you have a couple of options! You could go with one of our One Shots, which contain beloved recipes of our own such as Athena, Biscoff Milkshake and Electroshock. 

If you’re brand new to DIY, you may be happy to start with these as you already know you’ll love the flavour!

We also have some open DarkStar recipes here if you want to start there - Twister Lolly, Kanzi and Birthday Cake Ice Cream. This would be a good gateway into the world of flavour concentrates - maybe a great second step after our One Shots!

There are also thousands of pre-made recipes out there to choose from that have been tried and tested by vapers all over - this is also a great way to start.

When you are ready to get creative, we’d recommend finding an online e-liquid mixing calculator. It’s an essential tool in the kit of the beginner mixologist as you’ll be able to figure out ratios and exact amounts of your ingredients when you’re putting a recipe together yourself.

Concentrates usually make up 10-20% of a final mix, but it can vary depending on the flavours you're using. This stage can often be a bit of trial and error if you're unfamiliar with the concentrates you're using.

VG/PG 

This is when you can customise the VG/PG ratio of your liquid - we recommend using a syringe to add the base. 

To find out more about the difference between PG and VG, click here.

Remember that flavour concentrates are typically PG based (all of our DarkStar One Shots are, including One Shots) and nic shots also have a VG/PG ratio that can affect your final mix. Use that calculator we mentioned to make sure you've taken all of that into account.

Nicotine Strength

Now you'll need to decide on the nicotine strength you want your final e-liquid to be. The best way to do this is with 10ml nic shots.

For example, if you are creating 60ml of final e-liquid and you would like your nicotine strength to be 3mg, then 10ml of the final recipe should be made up of one of these 18mg nicotine shots (similar to how Short Fills work). 

Don’t forget, you can also choose between freebase and nicotine salts - click here for a breakdown.
 

Steeping 

Once you have a complete mix, it can be tempting to crack it open to taste your creation, but flavour concentrates, VG and PG have to steep before they are ready to vape.

These products have different densities and they need time to mix at a molecular level. Steeping is the process used in e-liquid production of aging your juice so that all the individual flavours come out and it ultimately tastes better.

E-liquid recipes, especially those of a complex nature, will continue to steep over time. Some people, for example, like to steep their custard recipes for up to 6 months! As a guideline the recommended steep times are as follows:

• Simple fruit flavours: 1-3 days

• Tobacco flavours: 2-4 weeks

• Custard/cream flavours: 3-6 weeks

• Bakery flavours: 2-4 weeks

We hope this short blog helps shed some light on the DIY e-liquid mixing process.

To learn more about some of the steps mentioned, check out the rest of our blog or join our online community. Don't forget that our expert team is available via email to answer any and all of your mixing questions.