Should You Stop Steeping Liquid?

[T-Bone]

After steeping for a week or so, should you stop and put the caps back on for good? Or is it all preference?

[Compenstine]

My thought is people should stop calling it steeping when by definition it is aging.

[Tam]

In my own opinion it's all personal preference. With the juices I vape regularly, I know which ones need to steep longer with the caps off and which ones to better with the caps on for best flavor.

[Tug]

Does steeping or "aging"(lol) really make that much of a difference in flavor? I'm always too impatient to wait a week to steep a juice..oops I mean aging lol ;-)

[Tam]

Depends on the juice. For many of the fruit flavors, I've found very little difference by steeping. With creamy flavors and other bakery flavors, I've found a pronounced difference between a week to two weeks and more. My ADV needs a minimum of two weeks (a month is usually best but rarely lasts that long), so I order accordingly so that it can steep before use.

[Compenstine]

*Stomps Feet.... Aging I tell you Aggggiiinggg! LMAO

[Tam]

*Stomps Feet.... Aging I tell you Aggggiiinggg! LMAO

LOL. I could go on about old dogs and new tricks, but the short story is that my body's doing all the aging it wants on its own. I have this thing on the word, "aging"...

[Compenstine]

LOL Yeah.... Aging does get old doesn't it. *Moves quickly to avoid the fist in the arm.

[Earthling789]

I know my ADV, after I mix it, tastes much better after I let it "age" for a month... which is why I buy the ingredients and mix it at least a month before I'm ready to vape it As for some of the juices I buy from my B&M... some are great "that day"... some taste even better after a few weeks... it really depends on the flavor or complexity of the flavor. The Hydra flavors Comp sent me for review tasted better every day I let them "stand"... until about 2-weeks in... then they balanced-out perfectly... I don't know how they taste after a month... because they are all gone

[Bebop]

I almost woke the wife was laughing so hard....

I have had different experiences aging juices ( aging, aging, repeat aging - if I forget and write steeping in what I'm about to write, take pity on this old man, haha).

A whole heap o' my juice ain't never saw a better day after months of agin' ( sorry, I been watchin' a LOT of westerns lately) , in fact it's still aging in some landfill somewhere I'm a shore. Ain't none the better and it needed killin'.

Some improved with agin' but as someone quicker on the draw said plain, it don't last but a couple weeks anyway.

Had a few back in '13 that aged them selfs in to a mess you wouldn't serve to the fly on the horses *** a varmint rode in to town on. And that's the truth.

[Tam]

*falls over laughing*

OMG, Bebop. I need a translator for your post. I ain't much on jawin' western...

[T-Bone]

Bebop, you've seen El Dorado and Rio Bravo, yea? Two of my absolute favorites.

[bcartervol98]

I age my liquid by accident. When I get down to 100-120ml I order another 250ml. It ends up sitting for a month or so before I open it but in all my current vapes I cannot tell a bit of difference between the day it comes in and the day I start vaping it. I think aging can be beneficial with some liquids but none of those I regularly use.

[Bebop]

*falls over laughing*

OMG, Bebop. I need a translator for your post. I ain't much on jawin' western...

*taking hat off*. M'am, ya did just fine.

Bebop, you've seen El Dorado and Rio Bravo, yea? Two of my absolute favorites.

Yes sir, right up there with the best

[BDM53ENT]

*Stomps Feet.... Aging I tell you Aggggiiinggg! LMAO

You say aging, I say Maturing ...... .........................

[Tug]

Being from Texas I understood everything you said I had to read it twice to notice the southern slang lol.I reckon us country folk ain't got too much of them fancy book learnins yawl!

I almost woke the wife was laughing so hard....

I have had different experiences aging juices ( aging, aging, repeat aging - if I forget and write steeping in what I'm about to write, take pity on this old man, haha).

A whole heap o' my juice ain't never saw a better day after months of agin' ( sorry, I been watchin' a LOT of westerns lately) , in fact it's still aging in some landfill somewhere I'm a shore. Ain't none the better and it needed killin'.

Some improved with agin' but as someone quicker on the draw said plain, it don't last but a couple weeks anyway.

Had a few back in '13 that aged them selfs in to a mess you wouldn't serve to the fly on the horses *** a varmint rode in to town on. And that's the truth.

[jasonculp]

I age my liquid by accident. When I get down to 100-120ml I order another 250ml. It ends up sitting for a month or so before I open it but in all my current vapes I cannot tell a bit of difference between the day it comes in and the day I start vaping it. I think aging can be beneficial with some liquids but none of those I regularly use.

I do the same thing. I try to buy in 120ml batches and it lasts a while. I can tell a difference in mine though. I can taste a bit of "chemical" taste in nearly all juices I buy. I assume it is the nicotine, but it isn't as bad in high VG juices, so it could be the PG. I just leave them in a cool, dark cabinet for a few days with the lid off and it goes away. I then seal it up and use it as needed.

*taking hat off*. M'am, ya did just fine.

I have a tendancy to talk this way in real life. I try to not sound too "Hillbillyish", but it just slips out. Everyone is Ma'am and Sir, no matter how old or young, and a lot of y'alls... I guess it is part of my upbringing and being raised in a small ranching/farming community. To make matters worse, my wife, who is hispanic, has an accent that is closer to a Southern Belle, with a little South of the Border mixed in.... We can't use any voice activated technology...lol

[Tam]

I have a tendancy to talk this way in real life. I try to not sound too "Hillbillyish", but it just slips out. Everyone is Ma'am and Sir, no matter how old or young, and a lot of y'alls... I guess it is part of my upbringing and being raised in a small ranching/farming community. To make matters worse, my wife, who is hispanic, has an accent that is closer to a Southern Belle, with a little South of the Border mixed in.... We can't use any voice activated technology...lol

When I've been watching a lot of westerns like Bebop has lately, I can swing right into the lingo (living in the sticks in Colorado doesn't hurt). This past month I've been main lining old West Wing episodes where they speak "politicalese" so the western dialect didn't get through. LOL

[Brendan.M]

First off if the cap is off on the juice; this is known as breathing and all your doing is thinning your juice out and over oxydising your e juice. True steeping is capping the bottle, putting it in a dark area (box) for a period of time.

Now my over all recommendation when it comes to steeping and gaining the most out of your flavor is this.

Know what kind of juice your dealing with, fruity, custard, fruity and custard, etc.

With fruity only based juices there's not much work you need to do for these most are good just right out of the bottle, but if I were you with these shake the bottle for a good 15-20 seconds, take the cap off let it breathe for around 2 - 6 hours, but no more than 12 at any given time. Then cap the bottle, put it in the dark area again, for a day take it out shake it, un cap it let it breathe for 2 hours, re cap it let it steep for two more days now. Juice should be good by then.

Now custards, there's more to it. Personally, custard juices are thicker and tend to take more time to gain the most flavor out of them. If I were you first thing I'd do is shake the bottle for a good 30 seconds, un cap the bottle let it sit in dark area for around 4-6 hours, take it out re cap it and shake again for another 30 seconds. Let is sit in the dark area now for 48 hours. Take the bottle out, If it's a squeeze bottle just pump air in and out of it; this method is something called Streathing, it will add oxygen to your juice and break down the Vegetable Glycerin into the PG creating more flavor essentially. Now once you basically pump air into the juice let it sit in the dark area for about 2 hours un capped, re cap this run under hot water for 10 mins no more then that, then cap it put in dark area for 3-5 days let it sit there and dont touch it. This should be around 7 days after. By now if you've done all these steps the juice should be better, but if it's not simply repeat the process and do it for an addition 3-5days+. Remember custards take more time than just a fruity juice.

If it's a fruity custard, basically do the same thing as you would for a custard, but less time for steeping.

[Brendan.M]

Also please keep in mind that when you "steep" your juice like you do with the cap off for days at a time this is a huge no, no. Only let your e juice breathe for no more than 12 hours at a time. Anything more than this will losen your juice to a point where it will lose flavor, instead of "break" down the vg, pg and nicotine making more flavor it will just thin out and basically, lose it from to much oxygen.

[Compenstine]

Steeping

1.

soak (food or tea) in water or other liquid so as to extract its flavor or to soften it.

"the chilies are steeped in olive oil"

https://www.google.com/search?q=steeping+definition&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Ageing

The process of maturing a food or beverage to improve the flavor of the item being aged. The purpose of storing a product so it can age is to improve the overall taste and to impart the distinct characteristics provided by each storing technique. For wine and many liquors, ageing refers to the amount of time the product is stored in oak barrels, stainless steel barrels, or in bottles. Beverages can be aged for a few weeks or for lengths of time that can be for many decades.

http://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t--36520/ageing.asp

I couldn't resist.

[Tug]

Lmao you beat me to it Comp!

Steeping

1.

soak (food or tea) in water or other liquid so as to extract its flavor or to soften it.

"the chilies are steeped in olive oil"

https://www.google.com/search?q=steeping+definition&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Ageing

The process of maturing a food or beverage to improve the flavor of the item being aged. The purpose of storing a product so it can age is to improve the overall taste and to impart the distinct characteristics provided by each storing technique. For wine and many liquors, ageing refers to the amount of time the product is stored in oak barrels, stainless steel barrels, or in bottles. Beverages can be aged for a few weeks or for lengths of time that can be for many decades.

http://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t--36520/ageing.asp

I couldn't resist.

[VapeBerry]

I like to steep/age/whatever. With new juice that has the dropper type of cap, I'll leave it off for a few hours, and every once in a while I'll stick the dropper in the bottle with only air in it (the dropper), and squeeze air down into the juice. Some juices it doesn't change very much, but it's never changed an e-liquid in a bad way imo. It can really help juice that has that alcohol taste when it's new.

[spydre]

Depends on the juice. Although some juices REQUIRE aging (okay, it sounds like we are talking about whiskey/bourbon/Scotch and/or wine), and most juices benefit from it, I tend to get juices that don't "require" aging, but that do benefit from it if it gets aged. I tend to get two bottles at a time of Cactus Juice (two fifty ml bottles) and two 30 ml bottles of Smurfblood (another hometown "brew", from different B&M, and with my husband in school full time, the opportunity to get out to get more juice only happens on weekends that's he's not piled down with homework), and so that second bottle ends up "aging", even if it's just a week or two. I know I had a bottle of 618 (a hometown "brew" that a local B&M makes, named after our area code) that was sitting mostly full for about nine months before I gave it to my husband, because he was out of it, and and couldn't get to the B&M soon enough to replace it before he ran out - I had stopped vaping it that long ago, and he still does (it was our first flavor a yeah and a half ago when we started).

[Mplough]

"the chilies are steeped in olive oil"

This begs the obvious, when will the chili pepper juice be forthcoming???

As for 'aging' one of my local shops forgot about peach tea they were working on. It sat for 3 months. They just put it out today and it is (to borrow a phrase from Rip Tripper) Guuuuuuuuuuuuuudddd!