:: Guide e-Liquid Calculator

E-Liquid Recipes is the largest e-liquid recipe database and calculator in the world, with over 85,000 registered users, over 50,000 public recipes and more than 750,000 private recipes as of November 2016.

ELR also has a forum where people can discuss any DIY-related topics.

You can use ELR anonymously, but to get the full benefits you should create an account. Although you can set your preference to measuring by drops, it is strongly recommended to use volume or weight instead. Drops will vary from person to person, bottle to bottle, and pipette to pipette. With volume or weight, it will always be the same, provided you can measure it precisely enough.

Flavors

Working with your flavor stash

You can add flavors to your personal stash from your flavor stash. You can add notes, rate them, specify the weight of each, note how much is in the bottle, record how much it cost, choose the flavor carrier (PG/VG/Other), and input your preferred single flavor mixing percentage. When ELR gets batch tracking, it will give you a price for each recipe you make and reduce the amount of flavoring you have in your stash so you can be warned when you are running low on flavorings.

When you adapt or create a recipe with flavors that are not in your stash, ELR no longer automatically adds them. Flavors are only added through the stash page.

It's a bit hard to get an overview over all your flavors in your stash. A small tip is to use the search by stash page to see them all more easily. The naming convention is Flavor Name Here (Brand Abbreviation Here), eg. Sweet Cream (TPA) should be used instead of TFA Sweet Cream. If in doubt which to use, it is a good idea to use the flavor list, and pick the flavor with the most recipes.

Another important tip, is to search smart; instead of searching for "vanilla bean ice cream tpa" you can search for "tpa va be ic cr" and still get the same result.

Flavor list

There is a public flavor list, where you can see the name and how many recipes are currently using that flavor. The recipe count includes recipes that are marked as being private, so don't be surprised when you go to the details and don't see as many recipes as you expect.

If you want to search for, say, Sweet Cream (TPA), you can input sw cr tpa and the first option in the auto-complete will likely be the correct option.

Some people will add the same flavor just with a different name. It happens. You can help by going to the Duplicate Checker, marking it as a duplicate, and marking the flavor that is the correct one as the original. The admins will deal with it quickly.

The flavor details page

This page is one of the strong suits of ELR. Each flavor has its own page where you can see the minimum, average, median, and maximum percentages used on ELR. As well as people's preferred single flavor percentages.

You may also view peoples' ratings, notes, where to buy, and recipes that the flavor is used in. It will also show you how many private recipes the flavor is used in.

Some flavors, like TPA, Cap, and FLV, have a link to their Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), detailing product and safety information.

Flavor warnings

Some flavors will have small warning signs on a recipe. The flavor details page will show you what the warning is. The warning list is not always up to date, so please send some feedback if you are aware of anything suspicious regarding a flavor. Amendments are also welcome.

There is a complete list of all flavorings that have a warning attached to them here. This page is also accessible from the resources page.

Searching

The main page features a search bar for recipes. It searches in name, author, and flavorings – it only searches one flavoring though! So you can search for blackcurrant (tpa), but not sweet cream (tpa) bavarian cream (tpa). For advanced searching by flavors use one of the two search methods detailed below.

Say you want to look for a recipe that has "Strawberry Cheesecake", but you don't care about actual flavors with that name (you only want recipes where "strawberry cheesecake" is part of the title or recipe notes), check off "Exclude flavor names from search".

Searching by flavor stash

Here you can search for recipes that contain certain ingredients. The search results are not limited to the flavors you have in your stash.

The page will present you with your flavor stash and tick-boxes beside each flavor. As you tick off flavors, the results below will narrow down. This list can contain flavorings that you do not have in your stash.

It is important that you have named the flavors in your stash using the name that most people use!

What can I make with the flavors I have?

Clicking What can I make? will simply show you all the recipes on ELR that you can make with the exact flavors you have in your stash.

It is important that you have named your flavors in your stash using the name that most people use!

Useful searches

If you wanted to get the highest rated TPA flavorings, open the flavor list then search for (TPA), then sort by rating. If you want the most used flavors just sort by # recipes. Bear in mind that sorting by flavor ratings is not using the same algorithm as the recipe score - flavors ratings are just averaged. This will be changed in the future, to get a more accurate flavor rating.

Trick searches

At the moment there is no direct way to do it, but you can actually find recipes with a specific amount of flavors. To find recipes you can make that has exactly 3 flavors you can add the parameter "fcount" to the URL: https://e-liquid-recipes.com/whatcanimake?fcount=3.
It also works with the normal search. Here I search for "coffee", and have added "fcount" to the URL: https://e-liquid-recipes.com/list?q=coffee&fcount=3.
If you go the "Search by flavor stash", adding "fcount" also works.
If you use sorting or pagination while using "fcount", then you must add "fcount" again.

Following users

If you're tired of searching for recipes, but you know some mixers that makes good stuff, you can follow them, by clicking their name on a recipe or on the recipe list. This will take you to their "profile page", where you can see all their recipes. You can follow them, see who they're following or who's following him. Mixers you follow will show up on your recipe feed (accessible from My page).

You can add a bit of info to your own page, by updating your profile on the forum!

Working with recipes

Commenting and rating

The site allows you to add recipes as well as mark existing ones as favorites to keep track of them more easily. Recipes can also be commented on or rated with a 5-star rating system. Commenting is especially useful if you did not like a recipe and/or have an idea how it could be made better.

Be aware that your ratings are visible on your profile. To see what other people can see, click your name at the top of a recipe, or on the recipe list.

If you've not turned comment notifications off in your profile, you will get an email when someone comments on one of your recipes. You will also be notified if someone posts a comment on a recipe that you also have commented on. You can turn off notifications for individual recipes by clicking the blue wrench, and clicking "Turn comment notifications off" - they can be turned on again whenever you wish.

Mixing by weight

ELR supports mixing by weight, volume, or drops. You can change your preference by updating your profile.

ELR uses the following gravities:

PG: 1.036 g/ml
VG: 1.261 g/ml
Other: 0.938 g/ml

Nicotine base uses these PG/VG-values.

You can specify your own gravities for flavors using your stash (or the flavor details page). When you make a recipe, these values will be used instead of these defaults for flavors:

PG: 1 g/ml
VG: 1.16 g/ml
Other: 0.98 g/ml

Manufacturer specific gravities

On some flavors, like TPA, FLV and Cap, there are built in gravities for flavors. For example, Toasted Marshmallow (TPA) weighs 1.092 g/ml. To take advantage of this you must check the "Use manufacturer specific gravities" option in your profile.

You can override manufacturer specific gravities simply by entering a weight for the flavor in your stash.

Creating a recipe

Create a recipe by clicking the link at the top. You will be presented with several input fields.

Recipe name: The name of your recipe.
Amount to make: How many ml you want to make.
Desired strength: The strength in mg/ml in your finished liquid.
Water/Vodka/PGA: If you wish to dilute your liquid with water, vodka, or pure grain alcohol, specify the percentage here.
Desired PG: How much PG you want in your finished liquid.
Desired VG: How much VG you want in your finished liquid.
Max VG: Will hide the two previous fields and aim for the maximum amount of VG possible.
Nicotine strength: This is the strength in mg/ml of your nicotine base.
PG-content of nicotine: How much PG is in your nicotine base.
VG-content of nicotine: How much VG is in your nicotine base.
Notes: Informative notes such as steep time, if one flavor can be replaced with another, if some of them are optional, etc. This is especially helpful for others if your recipe is public.
Set these base values as default: ELR has some default values that are shown each time you create or adapt a recipe. If you check this box, these values will be overwritten with the values you inputted above.
This is a private recipe: If you wish others to see this, remove the checkmark. Please keep recipes with one flavor private ;-)

When you click "Add flavor", some new fields will appear. The first one is the flavor name. It will auto complete the flavor names, and give preference to the flavors in your stash. The same tricks apply here, e.g. if you wish to search for Sweet Cream (TPA) you can input sw cr tpa and the first match will probably be the correct one. The second field is the percentage of the flavor. ELR supports two decimals (using a period, not a comma), so the smallest amount you can save is 0.01%. Below these two input fields are three radio buttons. You can specify if the flavor is PG- or VG-based or in some other dilutant.

When you add a flavor to a recipe, the percentage field is automatically filled out with the desired flavors median mix percentage. That way you immediately know how others use the flavor, and you can adjust from there.

Sometimes you'll see a big red alert, telling you there is something wrong with the PG/VG-ratio. This is typically because your desired PG-ratio is too low. If you wish to have 90% VG and use 15% PG-based flavoring, it will show you -5% PG and give you the error. Simply raise your desired PG percentage, check off "Max VG" or use less flavoring.

Adapting a recipe

When you're looking at a recipe, you can click the blue wrench and click "Adapt this". This will put the recipe in edit-mode, and you can adjust it to your liking. When you adapt, the default values that you have will be applied to the recipe in question. When you save an adapted recipe, your recipe will get a new light blue button with some arrows on it indicating that this recipe was adapted from another. Clicking this button takes you to the "original" recipe.

Adjusting a recipe

Do you have a recipe that taste great, but is either too strong or isn't really flavorful enough? Now you can go to the blue wrench and click "Adjust total flavor %" - You can adjust all flavors proportionally!
Go to one of your recipes, click the blue wrench and click "Adjust total flavor %". This adjusts the total flavor percentage, keeping the ratio.

Sharing a private recipe

To share a private recipe, click the blue wrench, then click "Share URL privately" - After this, below "Short URL", a new field will appear: "URL to share privately".

You can stop sharing a recipe at any time, by going to the wrench and click "Stop sharing URL privately". The old URL will no longer work. Re-sharing it will create a new URL.

Creating a one-shot/concentrate from a recipe

Flavor bases are useful if you have an ADV and don't want to be mixing a bunch of flavors all the time. Say you use three flavors at 4%, 3% and 2.5%. The one-shot/concentrate is just an entire bottle of those three flavors in the correct ratio. When you want to mix, you just mix 9.5% of the base. It makes it much faster to mix your ADV.

To make a one-shot/concentrate, click the blue wrench on a recipe, and click "Make one-shot/concentrate". You will be taken to a page where you can input the amount of concentrate you wish to make (you can set a default there). The page will tell you how much finished liquid can be made with that bottle and how much you should use in each mix.

If you have 10 recipes varying in total flavoring from 4% to 17%, and you mix them all a lot, it can be a chore to measure out different amounts for the same bottle size. To make life easier for you, ELR can adjust the total flavoring percentage by adding PG. You just input your desired percentage, say 20%, for each of the flavor bases. That way all 10 recipes will be mixed with 20% concentrate. That way you can also have nicotine bases that fit that.

One-shots/concentrates are also useful to experiment with the strength of your recipe. Say you mix the above three-flavor-base at 8% instead of the original 9.5% and you think it's better, you can then adjust your recipe and bring each flavor down 15.79% ((1-(8/9.5))*100) bringing the flavors to 3.4%, 2.5% and 2.1%.

Copying text to forums, etc.

On the recipe, the blue wrench has a bunch of "Copy as ..." options. These can be used to copy the recipe into a forum and have it show much nicer than if you'd just write the flavor percentages. For reddit use the "Copy as markdown (reddit)". If you're pasting to ECF use the BBCODE.

A really simple copy that only copies the flavors, is "Copy simple text".

Prices on recipes

Set the volume and price of your PG, VG, Nicotine and Water/Vodka/PGA - this is done on the "Update profile"-page.

Go through your stash, and be sure to have amount and cost on each of your flavorings. You can also set these values on the flavor details page, if the flavor is in your stash.

ELR can then give you a price for your recipes. If the price has a small question mark beside it, it means that one of the flavorings is missing volume/pricing information in your stash. Click the question mark, to have ELR highlight the flavors that are missing information.

Flavor notes on recipes

By default, if you have notes on a flavor and you are looking at a recipe with that flavor, a small pencil-icon is shown. Click the pencil-icon to show your own notes below the flavor. Click it again to hide it.

This is useful if you have information on where to find the flavor in your storage system, or if you want to refresh yourself on the flavor.

If you feel that this unnecessarily clutters the interface, you can turn the feature off in your preferences.

Shopping list

You can keep a shopping list, so that you know what you have to get next time you have to get flavorings. Under each flavor details page, at the top right, there will either be a "You have this", "On your shopping list" or "Add to shopping list". Now I realize that you may want to put a flavor already in your stash on your shopping list, but right now you can only do this by adding the flavor from your shopping list.

From your shopping list, you can add flavors directly along with a note.

If you are missing flavors from a specific recipe, you can go to the blue wrench, then click "Add missing flavors to shopping list" to add all of them in one go. This will also create a small note in your shopping list, so that you can see which recipe it came from.

Images and video

You can add one or more images or youtube videos.
For youtube videos simply paste the youtube URL into the notes on a line by itself.
For images go to imgur.com and upload your image, then go to the image, and copy the image's direct URL and paste that into the notes field on e-liquid-recipes.com on a line by itself. If you insert an image before posting your recipe on facebook, the image will be used as a "cover photo" for the recipe.

ELR Member Map

Alisa has made a Google Map of approximate locations of ELR members. This helps if you need help of a geographical character :)
If you want to be on it, drop a comment on the thread here.

Other

There is a resource page with lots of good information, discount codes, links etc. as well as a collection of tips and tricks collected from all over the web.

Adjusting text size. For those that don't see well, you can adjust the text size by clicking the AAA to toggle between text sizes.

E-liquid-recipes.com

Contents