What is steeping? How do I steep my eliquids?
There are a lot of strange terms in the vaping world, it’s a complex industry and past time, and it’s quite easy to get confused if you’re not familiar with all of the lingo.
Lately I’ve noticed a lot of newer vapers asking questions about “Steeping”.
So what is “Steeping” anyway?
Traditionally, “Steeping” is a word reserved for the act of soaking a solid in warm liquid, in order to dissolve the solid, creating a mixture of the two. In the vaping world, it basically means to age your juice.
Steeping or aging your e-liquid is widely accepted as a way to help your flavours blend, mix and develop, so that your ejuice tastes better. Aging your juice allows the different molecules to bind, enhancing the overall flavour, allowing the various sharper ingredients to dull or meld with others in turn creating a much more complex, and harmonious flavour.
Typically, time is all an eliquid needs to mature, however there are various other methods that can be used depending on what you are trying to achieve.
How do I steep my ejuice?
Steeping is a pretty easy thing to do. Many store bought eliquids come pre-steeped and good to go already, but there are always exceptions to the rule, all depending on the profile of the flavour and what ingredients it uses.
For example, tobaccos really need a long time to steep, due to them being such complex flavours, desserts also require a little steep time to give custards or creams time to blend with the other ingredients creating a more rounded and settled flavour.
Fruits need very little time, and most can be vaped straight away.
Some people have specific steps that they take to steep their liquids, but all in all, time is what is needed. So a few days/weeks in a cool dark cupboard, with a shake every so often, will be all that is needed.
What are these other things I keep hearing about? Breathing? Streathing?
E-liquids can be made with a lot of different ingredients. Some even contain alcohol. Alcohol is often used as a carrier or mixer, to help the different ingredients blend, but it can also make an e-liquid harsh.
“Breathing” can help eliquids that contain alcohol, by aiding the evaporation. This is pretty straight forward. Take the caps off of your eliquid bottles and store somewhere you can be sure no nasties can get into the bottles. Personally I wouldn’t do this for very long, as the alcohol evapourates and exits the bottle, so too may the aromatic molecules that help create the flavour. (You all know that your sense of smell is a major part of how you taste flavours right?)
A few hours at a time should do it, you’ll then be left with a juice that has a much less pronounced alcohol profile.
“Streathing” is a combination of both “Steeping” and “Breathing”.
It is believed that heating your liquid (and therefore thinning it), giving it a good shake, and then taking the cap off and allowing it to breathe for a time, helps to get those molecules blending. The liquid will blend better at a thinner viscosity, and as it comes back to room temperature and also a thicker viscosity, those molecules will have stayed mixed through.
How long should I steep my eliquids for?
This is highly dependent on your own tastes, and since the ultimate goal is to make your flavours taste great, if they do, then you are done!
As a general rule of thumb however, the below steeping times will give you an idea of how long most eliquids should steep for.
Fruity Flavours : May not require a steep, however, 1-2 days is common, and will help take the harshness out of brighter flavours like pineapple, and citrus.
Baked / Dessert Flavours : Desserts take a little longer to steep in order to allow custards and creams to blend with other ingredients fully. Anywhere between a few days to 2 weeks should suffice.
Tobaccos : Tobaccos are widely known to take a long time to steep. Some say the longer the better! I like to steep mine for up to a month, in order to let some of those underlying nuances blend.
Is there a faster way to steep your flavours?
Sure there is, there a bunch of ways vapers have tried “Speed steeping” in the past, some of them include heating liquid, some involve rapidly stirring with magnetic mixers, others have used ultra sonic cleaners in order to agitate their e-liquids for faster results.
These are all methods that may or may not in fact actually work. Many swear by their speed steeping tricks, but in my opinion, nothing beats a little patience.
If you’re interested in trying out some speed steeping techniques, please be careful, there are a myriad of things that can go wrong, (melting plastic bottles in the microwave by accident for example) that might just have you tearing your hair out rather than sitting back and enjoying a nice tasty vape!
Let me know in the comments, if you’d like me to write something up about various speed steeping techniques, and if there is enough interest, I’ll start working on one!
