It’s Simple

Testing flavorings is a much requested video from many of DIYorDIE’s audience. They want to see how someone like myself goes about testing the new flavorings I get in. I think they expect some elaborate procedure filled with tons of different atomizers and different mods. Stacks and stacks of bottles and batches on top of batches. When in reality, it’s really not that complicated. I’m doing my best on DIYorDIE to explain to my many novice or casual mixers, that the process of it all is quite simple if your goal is just a great vape. That simplicity is what’s going to keep you excited about the medium. Testing is a chore to many mixers, though I do think essential if you’re trying to make some great recipes. You need to know your ingredients, and if you’ve never used something before, testing is the best way to get introduced to it. But it doesn’t need to be arduous. Just a simple 5% rule, a bit of recipe making, with a bit of note taking, and you’re good.

The Process

So the Five Percent rule basically means to test TFA, CAP, FW, and LA flavorings at 5% if you don’t already know the best percent to mix them at. For INW, FA, RF, HS, and FLV, starting at 1% is always best. Now this might vary, each ingredient is different. But the 5% rule is great for about 85% of the flavorings out there. You can also check out the FlavorBook to see recommended percentages if you’re not sure, or the 5% rule didn’t work. After you mix up a bottle, you taste it right after shaking and take your notes. The note taking is vital, and the entire reason you’re testing this ingredient. Make sure your notes only pertain to what YOU, and YOU YOURSELF taste. Even if you’re writing notes or testing for someone else, you only write down what you taste and feel. After that, I usually test and write my notes on it after an overnight steep. Then after 3 days. Then 5-7 days. Then another 7 days after that. Basically you want to test how the flavoring steeps, you want to record the varying degrees of flavor throughout its steep, and you want to document the flavor at that specific percentage after its fully bloomed.

Testing Recipes

After this I usually will test that flavoring in recipes that I’ve previously made, in their respective positions. So say I’m testing a strawberry. I will use that strawberry, at the percentage I deem best, in one of my strawberry recipes I know quite well. My Strawberry Cheesecakes recipe – something I’ve tasted thousands of times and know exactly what it tastes like – is perfect. This will give you an understanding of how the flavoring tastes within a recipe, against the other flavorings in that recipe, in a specific flavor profile, and how it steeps blended in a recipe. Now if you think the flavoring would be a great main note, make sure you’re testing it in recipes that make it the star of the show. If you think it’s an accent, then make sure you’re testing it in that scenario. Writing down all your findings and documenting everything that’s going on with, and around, that flavoring is critical. Usually you want to come up with a hypothesis, and test that hypothesis through your recipes, to see if its true or not. I’ll explain below after the recipe. But this is where the batching process usually takes place. You’ll want to test this flavoring in multiple different recipes and variations. This is put it through its paces and find its optimal situation where it reaches its full potential, as well as show you what the ingredients like in a multitude of different scenarios.

The Recipe in Video

In this recipe we’re testing the Rice flavoring (that I can’t name at this moment because its unreleased, but when it does release I will adjust this). Now going back to that hypothesis, I wanted to know if that Rice flavoring would work well in a “Soy Milk” or “Boba” situation, especially when paired with fruits. I used my trust Honeydewwey recipe (not the full recipe, just the main profiles) to test it in. I wanted the Rice to be the star so I used it at its max percentage, and laid in the other ingredients appropriately. After mixing and tasting, it seems my hypothesis is correct, and that this new flavoring works great in that scenario. This all goes in my notes under this flavoring, and will get stored away in my mixing notebook for future reference. And while that’s pretty much it, you’re not done. Well….you’re never done. There are billions of scenarios that these flavorings can work in. Just because you tested 100 of them doesn’t mean you know what the flavoring is 100% capable of. So the testing process for every ingredient is on going an forever. Just keep writing your notes, using these flavorings in many different scenarios, and you’re toolbox will keep growing.

If you enjoyed this video and this article about Simply Testing New Flavorings, and you want to learn more about recipe development, or advanced mixing techniques, or just getting access to the Flavorbook, feel free to head over to the Shop to become a DIYorDIE Mixers Member and gain access to all the content on the site.