
Beginners Guide to DIY E Liquid Mixing
Mixing your own e-liquid can be a daunting prospect but it isn’t as difficult as it seems.
There is a lot of trial and error involved. You can use the guide below to mix your first bottle and then experiment according to your personal preferences.
A Vapable DIY e liquid mixing kit contains everything you need to get started. You can buy one here.
The Basics
E-liquid as a whole only really contains 4 elements.
Nicotine
Vapable nicotine for DIY mixing is available as 10ml Nicotine Shots at 18mg Strength.
If you wanted a 6mg (0.6%) strength eliquid, using the 18mg nicotine, one third of the overall liquid would need to be the nicotine solution – 18 divided by 3 is 6.
Flavouring
The next ingredient is the flavouring. The amount you would put into your liquid varies but a good starting point is about 15%.
Dilutants
The final ingredients are the propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine or PG and VG for short. The ratio of each used is all down to personal taste. PG gives a stronger throat hit and carries flavour better whereas VG produces a thicker vapour but doesn’t carry the flavour as well. The majority of our e-liquid is at a ratio of 50% PG to 50% VG. We find this to be a good balance between throat hit, flavour and vapour production.
PG/VG Ratios
The most important thing to remember is that everything you put into a mix contributes towards the overall ratio of PG/VG.
Nicotine
Our nicotine shots are available in two varieties:
50/50 PG:VG
The amount added will contribute half to the overall PG ratio and half to the VG ratio.
For example:
33% of 50/50 Nic Shot with contribute 16.5% to the overall PG ratio and 16.5% of the overall VG ratio.
100% VG
The amount added to the mix will contribute to the overall VG ratio, but the PG ratio will not be affected.
For example:
33% of 100% Nic Shot will Contribute 33% to the overall VG ratio.
Flavouring
The majority of our flavourings are PG based (unless stated). The amount added will therefore contribute to the overall PG ratio of the mixture.
For example:
15% of flavouring will contribute 15% to the overall PG ratio.
Dilutants
The final step is to add PG and VG to bring the ratios up to the desired amount.
PG
If you add together the flavouring and nicotine already added and how much they contribute to the overall ratio and then take that away from the overall desired ratio, that is how much additional PG needed.
For example:
15% of flavouring and 16.5% from the nic shot comes to 31.5% PG already in the mix. Take that away from the 50% overall desired PG ratio leaves an additional 18.5% PG needed to bring the total to 50%.
VG
If you take away the VG percentage contributed by the nicotine from the overall desired percentage, this is how much additional VG is needed to achieve the desired ratio.
For example:
16.5% of VG is already in the mix from the nicotine solution. Take that away from the desired 50% VG percentage leaves an additional 33.5% VG needed to bring the total to 50%.
The Mix
So using all this, to mix a 10ml bottle, 6mg nicotine strength at around 50/50 PG/VG ratio the recipe would be:
- 3.3ml Nicotine Shot (33%) <– one third of the overall mix to make the strength 6mg
- 1.5ml Flavouring (15%)
- 1.85ml Propylene Glycol (18.5%) <– To bring the PG ratio up to 50% with the nicotine and flavouring
- 3.35ml Vegetable Glycerine (33.5%)
Please note that 10% of 10ml is 1ml, therefore 33% is 3.3ml and so on and so forth.
Once you have the basics down, you can experiment with different ratios of PG/VG and flavouring to suit your taste.