I posted on another thread inquiring about homemade Gel recipes, but the thread has died. Does anyone have any that work well? I found one that mixes honey, molasses and salt that works fairly well, but I’m sure there are better ones out there.
We have made bars by baking sweet potato, figs and nuts in a shallow pan… it took some experimentation but worked out fairly well.
I’ve used watered-down 100% natural maple syrup with success.
TribarGuy
1 Honey is good - either by itself or mixed with a flavour or essence to adjust flavour/sweetness
2 Maltodextrin - you should be able to buy this from a home brewing supplier. Its the same stuff that makes up the commercial products. It doesn’t really have a taste but you can add flavours if you wish.
It’s not so much the gel that is the tough part to make, its getting the darn packaging down. Gel flasks can be pretty disappointing. The Clif Shot packaging has got to be the best.
Years ago, a riding partner of mine’s uncle used to give us these refillable toothpaste tubes from REI filled with various concoctions of his. We would go off on multi-hour rides and sometimes we’d get a bad batch and didn’t have anything else to eat. When we got back we would tell him which worked and which made us hurl. He put rasberry or chocolate extract, maltodextrin, citric or ascorbic acid, some sort of amino acids, and potassium and sodium salt in most. The citric or ascorbic acid is supposed to help stabilze the mixture. The best ones tasted like rasberry jelly the worst tasted like cat urine. A couple of years later he started selling it and called it GU.
Ahhh, how do you know how cat pee tastes?
Sorry, I meant smells not tastes. I love my cat but not that much.
The point of the short story was the packaging anyway. They were easy to fill and held about 4-6 oz. They would be perfect if you could find a flip or pull top version instead of screwtop. When he first came out with the foil pack I gave him a hard time because of the litter potential but a bigger concern of his was people not washing out a reusable container properly and getting sick.
Here’s one recipe I got here last year. I never tested it, so let us know what you think.
For packaging, I’ve got a couple of small gel flasks that I use. They cost me a few bucks each so I carry them with me after consuming the contents. Alternatively, you can get small drink containers (often used for children’s fruit juice drinks between 100 and 200ml) which you can then throw away after use.