Steeping e juice: What’s the Hype?

Steeping juice is just another method in the master plot to make amazingly divine, delicious, and extraordinary juices for the DIY’ers or the people who own shops such as Vape Jungle.  At Vape Jungle, our handcrafted juices are always properly steeped so you will never have to wait to toke on the goodness.  However, we wanted to take a closer look at the process for those that are unfamiliar with it.

A few of the methods we came across included:

–          First, there are a few ways to steep your juice.  The most commonly used method would be to find a dark, cool, area and allow the juice to sit for a week or two.  This method works best when the cap is removed to express old air from within, and then shaken on a daily basis (once a day should do the trick).  With this method, different blends and flavors of e juice will vary on the amount of time that is needed before being considered fully steeped.

–          Another common method used in steeping e-juice is the hot rice method.  This can be achieved by first placing your juice in a bowl and filling it with minute rice until the rice covers about half of the bottle.  Remove the juice (as you never want to microwave e-juice), and fill the rice with the appropriate amount of water.  The rice should then be microwaved until the temperature is hot, but NOT scorching.  Place the bottle in the rice, uncapped, until the rice reaches room temperature.

–          Furthermore, some have also claimed that running the e-juice under hot tap water works well too.  You can achieve steeping this way by getting your tap water as hot as you can get it.  Hold the bottle sideways under the running water, ensuring you warm the whole circumference for at least a minute.  The bottle should be warm when you touch it.  Remove the cap from the e-juice and express any air from the top of the bottle, replace the cap and repeat this process several times until your juice has reached the desired state.

After digging relentlessly for quite a few hours, I found a few scientific theories on how steeping may actually impact vape juices.  Overall, the oxidation theory made the most sense.  During the steeping process, oxygen is introduced naturally into the e juice which allows the compounds within the e juice to react.  This process, called oxidation, produces oxides.  Oxides are not dangerous and will chemically happen over time.  During oxidation, compounds that are more volatile (being less stable elements that are easy to change) will evaporate upon a reaction with oxides, changing the overall taste of the e juice.

Moreover, I can attest from my own personal experience that it does work and is very necessary for some juices.  There have been many times that I have tried a juice and not cared for it much, to go back and try it again a few weeks later and it’s absolutely amazing.  In the same token, I have tried juice that I loved only to have it drastically change over the course of a week to a flavor I did not like or agree to buy.  Properly matured e juice should be the gold standard of all vape shops and it should never be an issue when purchasing premium e liquids, whether it’s a house blend or a special juice from Mars.  Again, at Vape Jungle, we promise our juice will pack a punch that is full of flavor and vapor, and of course always be aged to perfection through our own steeping methods when you purchase it.