Mix suggestions from single flavor recommendations

[Blackbeard]

Seems like every time I learn something in another thread, I come up with a new question to ask. Reading the recent TFA thread on recommended percentages of the TFA flavors for a single flavor juice, I started wondering about mixing two or more flavors together.

I'm sure it's going to matter what two or more flavors I'd mix, but is there a "standard" I might be able to come away with from those percentages as a starting point for combining those flavors? Lets just assume I want to mix something like lemon and lime to get lemon-lime.

Now I'm not known for asking clear questions, so as an example, lets say I want to mix flavor 1 and flavor 2 together and the recommended percentage for flavor 1 is 12% and flavor 2 is 5% if I were to mix juices with those flavors as a single flavor juice. Is there some intuitive suggestion I might be able to come up with for percentages if I were to combine flavor 1 and flavor 2 for a juice?

I'm sure this is a very subjective question. In a roundabout way, do flavors typically enhance each other so that I might not use as high a percentage as the single flavor recommendation or should I start about the same for each flavor?

Now I'm not even sure I should have asked this question because I'm confused about what I'm asking.

 

[boomerdude]

If you use the ejuice-me-up calculator, in the tool scroll down, there's a flavor calculator. The top box says 20. That's the default percentage for the mix. So in the five boxes below you would enter the percentage of the flavors you want. They must add up to 100%. So from your example you would put 50% for Lemon and 50% for Lime and hit calculate. The numbers you get from that calculation are shown on the right. You enter these numbers in the boxes on the recipe screen. So if your doing 20% flavoring you would have 10% Lemon and 10% Lime. This goes for all the flavors you want to use. You'll see these percentages in the recipe's folks post here in DIY and the recipe threads.

 

[Hoosier]

...lets say I want to mix flavor 1 and flavor 2 together and the recommended percentage for flavor 1 is 12% and flavor 2 is 5% if I were to mix juices with those flavors as a single flavor juice.

Actually this mix would be 8.5% total flavoring with 70% of total flavoring the lemon and 30% of the total flavoring lime. How do I get that? I imagine I took both those mixes as single flavor juices and I mixed those 50/50 and figure out what I have in flavoring in the original bottle. (Maybe someone else can break this math down so it is easier to understand. My brain just goes there and I have trouble explaining it.)

In a roundabout way, do flavors typically enhance each other so that I might not use as high a percentage as the single flavor recommendation or should I start about the same for each flavor?

Huh? That's more confusing that trying to get cinnamon to balance at the right level with other flavorings and that generally hurts my brain and my bottle washing hand. I've got a recipe that uses a tiny amount of caramel, and I mean tiny, but caramel is the primary taste. I've got one where blueberry is over 80% of the flavoring and is a minor part of the taste. Blending gets weird man, just go with it and play with it. Trying to figure it out ahead of time is like trying to train a cat to run bath water.

 

[Blackbeard]

Huh? That's more confusing that trying to get cinnamon to balance at the right level with other flavorings and that generally hurts my brain and my bottle washing hand. I've got a recipe that uses a tiny amount of caramel, and I mean tiny, but caramel is the primary taste. I've got one where blueberry is over 80% of the flavoring and is a minor part of the taste. Blending gets weird man, just go with it and play with it. Trying to figure it out ahead of time is like trying to train a cat to run bath water.

This is more what I was going after. I can figure the percentages of straight additions. I was wondering if by adding two flavors, I should reduce the single flavor percentages.

See, I told you I make simple questions very confusing. Thanks for trying to help.

 

[eHuman]

Math break down:
Juice A contains 20% lemon flavoring
Juice B has contains 20% lime flavoring

Mixing these two at a 50/50 ratio will net you 10% lemon, 10% lime for 20% total flavor
Note the amount of each component you are using: say for example 10 ml of each.

10ml of A multiplied by 20(percent flavor) = 200
200 divided by 20 (total solution volume in ml) = 10% of your completed solution is flavor A.
Same process for flavor B
Add Flavor A and flavor B % for total batch flavor, or 20% in this example.

The same technique is used if your starting percents are different, and your mix ratios are different.
Example:
Juice A contains 15% lemon flavoring
Juice B has contains 10% lime flavoring
Mixing these two at a 2:3 ratio (or 40/60) will net you 6% lemon, 6% lime for 12% total flavor
(10ml batch total size)
4 parts of flavor A multiplied by 15(% of flavor in A) divided by 10 (total batch volume) = 6 (% of flavor A in batch).
6 parts of flavor B multiplied by 10% (% of flavor in B) divided by 10 (total batch volume) = 6 (% of flavor B in batch).
A% + B% = 12% total flavor.

Not in the first example I used actual mls used and in the second example I used parts of the whole. Both methods work as they retain the proper ration by volume. You could also use percent of total solution, so long as you use the same convention from start to finish.

Example:
Juice A = 12% flavor
Juice B = 5% flavor
Jucie C = 9% flavor

Batch =
25% A,
25% B,
50% C

25 * 12 / 100 = 3% A
25 * 5 / 100 = 1.25% B
50 * 9 / 100 = 4.5% C
Total batch flavor = 3 + 1.25 + 4.5 = 8.75%

Hoosier's blog will cover you for the intent of your question clarified in post 4.
Make dilute non nic sample of your flavors to determine which are strong and which are weak, mix accordingly.

 

[Blackbeard]

The math is not a problem. That's not what I was trying to ask.

Let's assume Lemon is used in a single flavor mix at 10%. Lime is used in a single flavor mix at 10%. Now I want a lemon-lime mix. I don't want a total of 20% flavor (I'm guessing here that that would be bad, but maybe not). Is there a "rule" that most follow when making these multi-flavor mixes based on the starting percentages of the single flavor? Say maybe start with half of the percentages (5% lemon, 5% lime) to end up with a 10% flavor or do most just use 10% of both ending up with a 20% flavor base.

Do flavors usually enhance each other (5% + 5% needed), or do nothing to each other (10% + 10% needed)? Taking this example to the extreme and working backwards: I have a 6 flavor mix. If I were to use the starting single flavor percentages of 10% each, I'd be using 60% flavor. Working backwards, I have a recipe that calls for 3%, 12%, 8%, 7% of 4 flavors to make MasterMixRecipeTotal. All four flavors could be used in making 4 single flavor juices that are perfectly good. Chances are, I wouldn't make those single flavor juices using only 3% for the first juice, 12% for the second, etc. I might, but more than likely, I use higher percentages. In the case of the multi-flavor mix, the flavors enhance each other and don't need full strength single flavor percentages.

OK, so never mind, I think I might have answered my own question. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it clear to others what I was asking, but I gave myself a pretty good example that made it clear to me.

Thanks all for the help and sorry for this crappy post I started.