More gel recipes!

I've been tweaking the gel recipes, having finally exhausted my bulk batch of chocolate gel.  :-)  I have to apologize to anyone that tried to make the recipes I posted before.  I had the wrong units for the salt & no-salt on the "large batch".  It was supposed to be 'tbsp', but I typed 'tsp'.  I have since corrected it.

These recipes are "sample sizes" of about 3 gels.  I had enough ingredients on-hand to try a few different flavors - even an ill-conceived attempt at using Mountain Dew as the sweetener and flavor.  I'm not giving up on that, but I'll need to find some "concentrate" to make it work.  Once I get to the store and buy some more corn starch and sugar, I'll scale-up the recipes to the same point I had for the chocolate (~ 40 gels).

I also tweaked the glucose:fructose ratio to be 2:1, and reduced the sodium & potassium a bit to be closer to what is in Gu.  (I still have a little more in mine, since I'm a pretty salty sweater.)

I'm using a different product to store/dispense the gel now.  I found some old squeeze tubes that I bought a long time ago.  I'm happy to see that they're still available on Amazon.  They're very inexpensive, and work great!  (Easy to clean too!)  Each holds about 7 oz of gel if you fill it to max capacity, although I recommend only putting maybe 6 oz in there.

https://www.amazon.com/Coghlans-Squeeze-Camping-Reusable-Plastic/dp/B01N4KERHM

If you lose/break the clips, these work well as replacements:  

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MQPN57R/

Okay...  Enough is enough.  Here are the new recipes!

Mark’s DIY GEL – “Plain”

Hybrid starch+sugar fuel that is an alternative to gels or chews.  “Tiny batch” recipe makes around 4-4.5 oz of gel, which is nutritionally about the same as 3 Gu gels.  I bumped up the caffeine, sodium, and potassium compared to what Gu lists in their nutritional information.  Glucose:Fructose ratio is 2:1.  Approximately 17% of the calories come from protein.  (I read somewhere that 15-30% is okay.)  The intent is to start with this recipe, and add flavoring to it.  (See “Cinnamon Roll”…)

Amount (tiny batch)	Ingredient	Total Calories	Total Carbs	Sugars	Protein	Calcium	Sodium	Potassium	Caffeine	Cost
3 tbsp	Argo corn starch	90	21 g							$0.13
½ scoop 15 g	Bulk Supplements Whey Protein (unflavored)	58	0.1 g	0.1 g	14 g	63mg	38 mg	61 mg		$0.42
1/12 tsp 0.5 g	Table Salt						197 mg			$0.01
1/20 tsp 0.26 g	“No Salt”							130 mg		$0.01
1 cap	"Motivation" Herbal Caffeine capsule								100 mg	$0.14
4 tbsp	Granulated Sugar	180	36 g	36 g						$0.05
1 oz 2 tbsp	Water – adjust as desired
	TOTAL (~ 4 oz)	328	57.1 g	36.1 g	14 g	63 mg	235 mg	191 mg	100 mg	$0.79
	TOTAL per 1.3 oz serving	109	19 g	12 g	4.7 g	31 mg	78 mg	64 mg	33 mg	$0.26
	Vanilla Gu (reference)	100	22 g	7 g	0 g		60 mg	40 mg	20 mg	$1.25

Mark’s DIY GEL – Cinnamon Roll

Same as the “plain” recipe, but with cinnamon flavor.

Amount (tiny batch)	Ingredient	Total Calories	Total Carbs	Sugars	Protein	Calcium	Sodium	Potassium	Caffeine	Cost
3 tbsp	Argo corn starch	90	21 g							$0.13
½ scoop 15 g	Bulk Supplements Whey Protein (unflavored)	58	0.1 g	0.1 g	14 g	63mg	38 mg	61 mg		$0.42
½ tbsp	Ground Cinnamon									$0.23
1/12 tsp 0.5 g	Table Salt						197 mg			$0.01
1/20 tsp 0.26 g	“No Salt”							130 mg		$0.01
1 cap	"Motivation" Herbal Caffeine capsule								100 mg	$0.14
4 tbsp	Granulated Sugar	180	36 g	36 g						$0.05
1 oz 2 tbsp	Water – adjust as desired
	TOTAL (~ 4 oz)	328	57.1 g	36.1 g	14 g	63 mg	235 mg	191 mg	100 mg	$1.02
	TOTAL per 1.3 oz serving	109	19 g	12 g	4.7 g	31 mg	78 mg	64 mg	33 mg	$0.34
	Vanilla Gu (reference)	100	22 g	7 g	0 g		60 mg	40 mg	20 mg	$1.25

Mark’s DIY GEL – Vanilla

Slightly different than the “plain” recipe due to using some flavored protein powder for the vanilla.  The first attempt was a little too “flavorful”, so I used a combination of flavored and unflavored protein to tone it down.  I slightly reduced the added salt, since the flavored protein has a lot more sodium than the unflavored protein.  This recipe uses a little more protein than the “plain” (19g vs 14g), and the percentage of calories from protein is slightly higher (21% vs 17%).

Amount (tiny batch)	Ingredient	Total Calories	Total Carbs	Sugars	Protein	Calcium	Sodium	Potassium	Caffeine	Cost
3 tbsp	Argo corn starch	90	21 g							$0.13
10 g	Bulk Supplements Whey Protein (unflavored)	38	0.1 g	0.1 g	9 g	42 mg	25 mg	41 mg		$0.28
16 g	MuscleTech Nitro Tech Whey Protein – French Vanilla	53	1 g	0.7 g	10 g	70 mg	53 mg			$0.44
0.4 g	Table Salt						158 mg			$0.01
1/20 tsp 0.26 g	“No Salt”							130 mg		$0.01
1 cap	"Motivation" Herbal Caffeine capsule								100 mg	$0.14
4 tbsp	Granulated Sugar	180	36 g	36 g						$0.05
1 oz 2 tbsp	Water – adjust as desired
	TOTAL (~ 4 oz)	361	58.1 g	36.8 g	19 g	112 mg	236 mg	171 mg	100 mg	$1.06
	TOTAL per 1.3 oz serving	120	19 g	12 g	6.3 g	37 mg	79 mg	57 mg	33 mg	$0.35
	Vanilla Gu (reference)	100	22 g	7 g	0 g		60 mg	40 mg	20 mg	$1.25

Here's the unflavored protein powder I used:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E7IODXQ/

And the flavored protein powder:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M95SA2O/

Caffeine capsules:

https://www.amazon.com/Motivation-Caffeine-Vitamin-Supplement-Capsules/dp/B00C5U96FI/

"No salt":

https://www.walmart.com/ip/NoSalt-Original-Sodium-Free-Salt-Alternative-11-0-OZ/37233033

Everything else should be available in any grocery store...

Finally, I would not have thought to do this until I read another blog entry on DIY gels... http://theplantedrunner.com/tag/cornstarch-endurance-fuel/  That site has a lot of great information on it, and tons of recipes.  So thank you Claire for giving me some ideas to start making my own gels!  :-)