I recently tried a homemade gel recipe. I think with a little tweaking it will work well. I found several recipes on the net and even stumbled across some you -tube videos that talk you through it. Dont get nervous. Its easy. There are other flavors I want to experiment with, today I will try vanilla. The basic recipe is: 7 TBSP of honey,1tsp of molasses and 1/8tsp of Sea Salt. Mix it in a bowl. I added 1 TBSP of water. Put it in my Hammer gel flask and went to ride 30 miles. The flask was almost full and I used all but one swallow. I really tried to watch the clock and take some in every 30 minutes. The flavor was honey mostly. When it gets warmer I would definitely add more sea salt. If you can find blackstrap molasses use that. It has more magnesium which helps produce and transport energy to your muscles. That is a good thing. Another recipe I found used brown rice syrup. Use 60% brown rice syrup to 40 % honey and 1 tsp sea salt. I havent located this syrup yet but plan to try it. There was also a recipe to add caffeine with instant coffee. I am not so sure about this one. I like coffee, but not sure how this will taste. The ingredients I used cost me about 6 dollars. I bet I will have plenty of sea salt and molasses for most of the season, since those two ingredients are used sparingly. I will definitely buy a larger honey next time. This container has 18 TBSP, so enough for 3 full flasks. With gels/gu costing about $1.50 a piece I can tell I am going to be saving some serious money . Now , if only I can get Jim to try it.
I used to make my own Gu as well, using this same formula... I added a little protein powder to offset the pure carb loading.
ReplyDeleteI used Blackstrap Molasses since it was called for in the recipe. It has a distinct flavor that I really don't care for. I have since reverted to using packets of gel, but if I made my own again, I'd probably use regular molasses.
I like the taste of honey, though and it's tempting to leave out the molasses altogether.
There are so many ways to flavor this also. The molasses has the magnesium so its important, but only a small amount is needed. I added pure vanilla today and it was good. I will try protein powder also. I am making energy bars next week
ReplyDeleteIf you're tuning your recipe for the Kanza be sure to only use stuff that doesn't spoil in the heat. A lot of people had problems last year with the heat turning their food into a hot disgusting mess. Perpetuem was actually curdling out there.
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