Accessory Reviews

Vaping Home Brew Kit from The Plastic Bottles Company

New out and exhibiting this weekend at Vaper Expo is the Vaping Home Brew Kit from The Plastic Bottles Company. So what’s so exciting about a bunch of bottles – we get loads of these don’t we? Aha – there is more to this kit than meets the eye. Annoyed at getting the lids off shortfill bottles? Be annoyed no more – meet the Husky…

by Dave Junglist
May 3, 2018

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Well this was a hard job for me. How on earth can you make a review about bottles interesting? They are just bottles, right? You get your juice, you put it in a bottle, job done. I started mixing not long after I started vaping, even with the introduction of the shortfill only a year or so ago, and the current price war that seems to be engulfing the juice market, mixing is still the cheapest route to juice so I continue to make my own.

Bottles have always been a bit of an afterthought, and with the birth of the shortfill we saw the introduction of all sorts of 60 and 100ml bottles being shipped – all 0mg so compliant with existing legislation – but with enough space left in the bottle so you could tip in a bottle (or two) of 18mg unflavoured juice to make up the vaper’s favourite – a big bottle of 3mg!

The trouble with shortfills...

This is where the fun began – I got my first bottle of shortfill back in May or June last year, had my 10ml bottles of compliant nic and was ready to mix. Now, how to get the top off the bottle… On the first ones I got they were on there, tight. Finger nails would not get betwixt lid and bottle, no matter how much I tried the manual route the seal was so tight that there was no way that lid was coming off by teasing with my dainty digits. I am not a nail biter, I don’t have excessively long nails, they are just the right length in my opinion. I use my nails a lot. The kids’ shoelaces, tied in knots that appear to be rendered by superhuman hands rather than those of child, come apart easily when you get your nails in the right place. I can usually extract splinters from when I garden without resorting to a pin. I am proud of my nail work. But they are not up to the task when it comes to some shortfill bottles.

So what’s a vaper supposed to do? Where do you turn to for assistance when your amazing nails fail you? As a vaper you will have tools. Oh yes you will have tools. Pliers, wire snips, ceramic tweezer, screw drivers and more.

Be warned, some of these can kill you.

After considering a screw driver, push the bottle against leg with one hand, push screw driver into the space between bottle and lid – not clever. Puncturing a femoral artery is not big or clever. Don’t do it this way.

Tweezers – despite my ceramic tweezers being able to withstand 1 million degrees while I get some nice blue colouring on my coils before I use them they cannot withstand the might of the shortfill – they are no longer pointy, let’s say no more than that.

Pliers – this is where I ended up. OK, like a complete tool I tried the wire snips first. Surprising how easily they go through plastic isn’t it? And your thumb if you’re not careful. Pliers are OK though. Grasp the nib as low down to the lid as you can and lever it, the usually pop off. Although with some the lids were so brittle that the nib came away with half of the lid, the rest of it still attached to the bottle. At least I could now get my finger under it and prise it away. Not much fun trying to pour juice into your squonk bottle though. A bit messy.

So, the HUSKY. Looks like any other shortfill bottle, have a butchers.

When you look at the lid though, magic has happened.

Yes, you can see an actual lip under the lid. The lid is made of softer plastic and it will pop off when you put your nail under it. If you are a nail biter this might not be possible. So stop biting your nails if only for this purpose. You will find nose picking a more pleasurable experience if you do as well – multiple benefits!

When you put the lid back on it will snap into place – you will hear it pop back in and that will mean it is on tightly. That is the other issue with some shortfill bottles that I didn’t go into - when you get the lid in it isn’t always on well. You go to squeeze some juice into your tank, the lid pops off and your hands, mod etc get covered. Not good!

In the interests of science I thought I would do some stress testing on the lids. Surely a lid with this sort of design the material will start to weaken after a few times being taken off. As I said, my nails are good, I was ready. I took the lid off and replaced it 150 times. Yes, I sat there for 10 minutes and counted as I prised the lid off and snapped it back on again. Off, on, off, on, off, on. You get the picute. The things I do for this site, honestly.

I am pleased to say that my efforts were worthwhile, the lid withstood my nails of steel and off, on, off, on stress test with ease!

The Vaping Homebrew Kit

The HUSKY bottles are made with PET – so good they can be reused a good few times. Soak them out in warm soapy water and give them a good rinse and they are good for reuse.

Not only does this kit have these amazing Husky bottles with their oh so easy pop off and pop back as many times as you bloody well please tops. That is not the sum of it – this is what the kit contains:

4 x 60ml HUSKY shortfill bottles with caps and lids
4 x 120ml HUSLY shortfill bottles with caps and lids
8 x 10ml PET bottles with nibs and lids
1 x 1 Litre Jerry Can
1 x 500ml Jerry Can

Now the use of a Jerry Can in mixing is a new one for me. I never considered it before but have tried using them and I am converted. I filled the big one with VG and the little one with PG and made up a quick batch of juice. Using the Jerry Can is a breeze and can be very helpful at times. When you are mixing you can get just that last little out to make the right weight or volume up you can squeeze out just a small amount. The eight 10ml bottles are really useful for making samples or as smaller bottles to take out when you go on an evening out and don’t want a massive shortfill bottle in your trousers.

This is a really good kit and a fine addition to any home mixer’s set up, and what’s more you can go and check them out and get them at a bargain price if you are at the Vaper Expo over the weekend. Stand A135 – The Plastic Bottles Company – are selling these kits for a special show price of £10 – if you are lucky you might find a pack of Haribo in there too!

Thanks to the team at The Plastic Bottles Company we have 10 of these sets to give away! We will give 5 away in the competition here, three away on Instagram and two away on the forum here. Good luck! You can check out the HUSKY bottles on their site here https://www.theplasticbottlescompany.com/product-category/husky/.

Dave Junglist

Reviewer at POTV

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Dave Junglist is co-owner of Planet of the Vapes and has been vaping since 2015. He spent his early years with his head in a bass bin and was a very committed and experienced smoker. He had his first cigarette at the age of 13 and just knew it was for him. He did stop briefly with the aid of patches but reverted quickly and became a ‘secret’ smoker, working hard to keep his weak will from the attention of his family. Vaping made an honest man of him and for this he is forever thankful. He has been involved in websites since completing a degree in Environmental Science in the late nineties. At that time there was pretty much no contact with computers but on joining the regular workforce and deciding that the world-wide-web was the future he blagged his first job as a web designer and never looked back. As you would expect from a junglist, Dave likes his beats and is most comfortable when the bass is wobbly.