Vape Train Australia Golden Syrup
ConcreteRiver
Disclaimer: I didn't pay for this, shoutout to Vape Train for sending this to me.
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 12 wrap 24g 3.5mm SS316 @.30 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Vape Train Golden Syrup, 1%, 4% and 8%, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 43 days.
Flavor Description: Based on a lightly caramelized invert sugar syrup. Like pancake syrup without the maple flavoring, basically.
Seems pretty accurate, at least to the homemade version I tried. Mostly just sweet, but with a bit of a deep caramel warmth. Nothing too heavily toasted or burnt, and manages to avoid that soapy caramel off-note you’ll get with a harder caramel like FA. Some fairly light buttery richness here, but nothing like a full on caramel sauce. Tastes maybe just a bit malty, but it’s pretty subtle. No other weird bakery flavors sticking out, tastes like their could be a really slight amount of vanilla in here but if it’s there it works pretty cohesively with the flavor without calling attention to itself.
Pretty heavily sweet flavor overall, which makes sense. Moderate thickness and the mouthfeel does, in fact, feel like a syrup. Not really watery, but it does kind of feel like a liquid type of sweetness as opposed to a dry, solid block of sugar. Seems to vape a bit warm, but nothing that is really interfering with the flavor. Not really relevant, but very sweet room note. Smells like I was vaping some Aunt Jemima’s after walking back into the room.
For a sweet flavor, seems pretty easy on the coils. I went through about 15ml of this on the same wicks and coils. The wicks got maybe a bit crunchy, but nothing really burnt. Just for laughs, I dry burned the coils off and didn’t see any heavy coil gunk burning off, so if there is a sweetener in here it’s at least not crazy heavy on sucralose.
Off-Flavors: Nah, nothing seems off here.
Throat Hit: Light, mostly at higher percentages. Seems to dry out a bit for me with extended vaping solo, but that is probably not going to be anyone’s preferred application.
Percentage testing: At 1%, sweet, but not much nuance. Maybe a tiny bit of that darker caramelized note but pretty light overall. Fairly nondescript here.
At 4%, this is basically dead on profile. Sweet, warm, mildly caramelized, and just a bit buttery. Texture feels syrupy.
At 8%, even sweeter and a bit dry. Doesn’t seem to bring any additional nuance over 4%.
Vape train suggests mixing with this at 1-5% or 5-9%. I can’t really come up with a good reason to vape this standalone… but the mixing percentages pretty much cover it. Just based on these tests, I’d probably start around 1% for this as mostly a sweetener, and go up to 3-4% as a syrup or distinct flavor.
Uses & Pairings: Should be a pretty good catch-all base for various dark sweeteners. Not as dark as molasses, but not as plain as corn syrup or straight white syrup.
Pancake syrup sort of tastes like maple, but is pretty much just high fructose corn syrup. Kopel used this a pancake syrup with his Flapjacks! recipe I’d probably still add some maple to it, but it seems to have worked for him there.
By itself, this would make a decent stand-in for a malt syrup. Adding some NF Malt to this would be even more better. Could also work as a darker sweetness like rice bran syrup or maybe even a really light molasses.
Good filler agent in bakery applications that involve a filling really high in karo syrup like pecan pie or a chess pie. Probably a fairly good sweetener for drier profiles like bakeries or tobaccos in general.
No description, but here’s the product page from Vape Train.