First RBA... What did I do wrong?

[Rocceral]

This was my first time building a coil. The rba is a reomizer. The performance is great, vapor production is awesome, but the taste is off. It doesn't taste burnt, just off. I can't really explain the taste. The coil ohms out at 2.0. I used silica wick as well. Do these have any sort of break in period? What could cause this? Any suggestions would be great.

 

[State O' Flux]

This was my first time building a coil. I used silica wick as well. Do these have any sort of break in period? What could cause this? Any suggestions would be great.

Did you torch the silica? Silica wick, which can be anything from low grade Chinese to best grade German and Russian Ekowool, can have a residue on it.
Frequently, the only (quick and easy) way to remove contaminates is to torch it. The alternate is to boil it, which works OK, but not as effectively as torching. If neither is done... it may take awhile for the "just off" taste to dissipate, if ever.

 

[Rocceral]

I torched the wire but I did not torch the silica. I will give that a try.

 

[johnny bobcat]

You could also use cotton instead of silica. I've tried both and vastly prefer cotton

 

[State O' Flux]

I torched the wire but I did not torch the silica. I will give that a try.

Please do... torch it to glowing. ;-)

Just a tip - torching the wire, if it's done to compress it, is really not needed... unless the coil you've made is so out of shape that it's required just to obtain a decent enough coil that it can be mounted.
If the coil is made to 90%+ final compression (just a percentage I've selected that seems to convey an almost, but not quite perfect coil)... it can be "finish compressed" after it's fit to the atomizer and test fired.

 

[Rocceral]

What do you use for cotton?

 

[Rocceral]

You could also use cotton instead of silica. I've tried both and vastly prefer cotton

What do you use for cotton? Medical cotton? Cotton balls?

 

[SkvLTD]

Or take time to setup stainless steel mesh, that IMO tops all of the above.

 

[JeremyR]

Plain old cotton balls. Lightly form an even width wick the size of your coil. Do not compress or roll it tight.

 

[gpjoe]

I use organic cotton balls from Walgreen. Some folks use sterilized rolled cotton from CVS. Either is fine - just make sure it's real cotton. Some cotton is actually synthetic. As for the amount, it's better to see than for me to try and explain. Try this video by super_X_drifter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8FyL2CTd-k

 

[ian91]

I use the same cottonballs from Walgreens. Don't have to boil them