The hows and whys of e-liquid steeping – it doesn’t have to be like climbing a hill

The deeper into vaping many people get, the more eager they often become to experiment with their e-cigs, mods and e-liquids. This experimentation can take many forms; for instance, the customising of the equipment used for vaping to ensure you experience fuller and more potent hits or to enable ‘cloud-chasing’. And some vapers like to make sure they experience the e-liquid that they’ve carefully chosen and bought to their maximum potential, via a process called steeping.

What’s steeping? Well, in general terms, it refers to submerging something solid in water to either soften the subject or remove flavour from it – thus, it’s often used in food preparation. However, in reference to vaping, steeping concerns getting the full flavour from an e-liquid, often one that’s not new and is beginning to age.

What’s the benefit of steeping e-juice?

In many ways, steeping is all about time – it often involves allowing an e liquid UK to age or sit, rather like how you might allow a fine wine or alcoholic spirit to age so you can enjoy its best possible quality and taste at a later date. This is the big benefit of steeping; you get the fullest flavour possible. How so? Because just leaving a good e-liquid to sit should enable its ingredients – the likes of propylene glycol (PG), vegetable glycol (VG), nicotine and flavourings – to properly and wholly blend together before the e-juice is vaped and tasted, as its maker no doubt intended. Moreover, a by-product (and, thus, an additional benefit) of steeping is that during the process any alcohol the juice may contain (dependent on flavouring) is likely to evaporate, which ought to result in the flavour becoming smoother.

Do you need to steep e-liquid?

In the final analysis, no, you don’t need to steep your e-liquid, of course. And, naturally, it’ll be entirely ready to vape and taste when it’s sold and as soon as you purchase it. But the fact remains that, in any many cases, steeping an e juice UK will improve how it tastes – and you could well derive more satisfaction from it if you do so; if, in vaping, the flavour is that important to you. For instance, when cooks make a sauce, a soup or a chilli or whenever they pickle something, they’re aware that the longer they allow it to sit and rest, the better the flavour will turn out to be, but that doesn’t mean the food they’ve created can’t be enjoyed and savoured before the last possible moment.

How do you steep e-liquid?

To break it down, there are three key components to successful steeping of a vape liquid UK:

• Steeping – this is the essence of the steeping process, of course; it’s the placing of sealed e-liquid bottles in cool, dry, dark, appropriate places, removing them to give them a good shake now and again and then returning them to their hideaway
• Breathing – some consider this steeping, others don’t; it’s the removing of the cap from an e-juice bottle while it sits for a few hours, but not too long (certainly no more than 12 hours) because the flavor and nicotine will likely fade as some of the liquid inevitably evaporates
• Steathing – basically a combination of steeping and ‘breathing’; shake an e-liquid bottle, let warm tap water run over it, remove its cap and place it in an aforementioned appropriate place for a couple of hours, before replacing the cap and giving the bottle a good shake and, finally, squeezing excess air out of the bottle (should it have a ‘nipple’ so you can do so). Repeat several times.

Is there a way to speed up e-liquid steeping?

Yes, steeping takes time, but that said, there are a select few hacks (who doesn’t love a good hack?) you might try to speed up the process:

• Bath, sink or bowl – fill any of these (which you choose’ll depend on how much e-juice you want to steep) with warm water and, having placed the vape juice bottle(s) in a plastic bag(s), submerge it/ them in the warm water for a few hours
• Slow cooker – using a slow cooker’s ideal because it’s good at providing a consistent low heat; so, having set yours at a no-higher-than-warm temperature, put your bottle of e-juice in a bowl of water and place this in the slow cooker, not forgetting to shake the bottle now and again
• Ultrasonic cleaner – should you own such a device for cleaning vaping equipment or even jewellery, you can deploy it for steeping; again, fill it with warm water before popping in your sealed-in-a-bag e-juice bottle(s), enabling the vibrations from the ultrasonic waves to send tremors through the liquid so its ingredients are forced to mix
• Seed steeping – this one’s clever and simple; you mix unsteeped e-liquid with already steeped e-liquid to (ahem) ‘plant the seed’ in the former and ensure the blending of its chemicals takes place faster than would otherwise be the case. Hey presto!