Some other possibilities to consider with regards to the "burnt flavor" may include (some of these may be irrelevant since I didn't pay close attention to your set up / equipment)...
battery voltage: are you simply burning your oil by heating it too hot? try a vv battery at a lower setting like 3.2v
Yep, I've tried it at low voltages, higher ones, the taste persists
hitting frequency: are you hitting your cart so frequently that your wick isn't properly reloading with oil each time, resulting in a burnt wick / damaged atomizer?
I wondered about that before, and loooooooong durations between hits seems to help, but I imagine I should be able to take a 8-10 second hit every minute or so without ruining the flavor
terpene loss: perhaps the terpenes in your oil are evaporating and/or being burnt off faster than your concentrate, resulting in a flavor that becomes less pleasant over time?
Definitely possible! This gives me some ideas for testing (below)
concentrate / dilutant separation: maybe the oil isn't burning at all. maybe the dilutants and the concentrate are simply separating over time and the "dark fluid" you see in the cart towards the end is really just remaining wax/shatter (similar to the terpene loss possibility)
I have seen this in one of my earlier batches! It does not appear to be the case with my recent mixes, however....
fwiw: I've had o.pen carts do what you describe fairly consistently. When I'm about 2/3 done with the cart I notice the oil has become significantly darker and burnt looking. Mine surprisingly enough still tastes terpy at that point though. Leads me to believe that your burnt flavor has more to do with wick burn.
Yeah, I've tried switching carts at this point, using a syringe to manipulate the thcjuice, and the burnt taste persists.
Thanks for your insight! This gives me some ideas for testing and establishing some new controls. I have more than enough o.pen carts to fuck around with, so this is what I'm thinking and I strongly invite opinions or suggestions
Controls
I will load 0.25mL of Holy Terp, Puffmajic, and Pan's Ink (if I have any left) into an o.pen cart (ugh I'm so sick of typing "o.pen" for some reason) and try vaping them in different, but consistent manners. I want to see how duration, power/voltage, and frequency of hits affect the diluent/solvent flavor on its own. These are very confounding variables and I'm not sure whether I'll do a matrix of every condition or not...
Duration: 2s, 5s, 8s, 10s, and maybe 10s+5s (two pulses since my battery caps at 10 seconds per button press)
Voltage: Assuming my battery will adjust to any resistance difference between the different carts, start with the lowest (I believe it is 3.2V), then do 0.2V steps up to 4.2 or 4.4.
Frequency: Take a puff every 30s, 45s, 60s, 90s.
So....hm....
2s 5s 8s 10s 15s
3.2v
3.4v
3.6v
3.8v
4.0v
4.2v
4.4v
yeah, something like that, do each at one frequency for a fixed number of hits (5? 10? unsure), and keep testing that way. Sound kosher?
I'm hoping to ascertain which factors affect the flavor/experience the most, at least with the solutions alone. Then, assuming I find a range of variables which work well, I'll begin mixing in concentrates. It's possible that what I find to be good for the diluent alone is not suitable when oil has been dissolved in it, so I might have to try the range of variables all over again.
If, however, I find that the flavor of the controls gets ruined no matter what then I think it's logical to blame the carts themselves, until I try this out with other types of tanks and carts.
That said, I'm REALLY not looking forward to trying this in anything other than the o.pen carts because of the motherfucking sputtering and leaking. I'm jealous of you guys who don't experience this!
