I need to add 250 mg of sodium to my drink
How much sodium citrate do I need to add to get 250 mg of sodium
Thanks
1tsp sodium citrate is about 1000mg of sodium
Sodium citrate is 26.7% sodium by mass.
You’ll need about 936mg of sodium citrate to yield 250mg of sodium.
John
(Retired chemistry teacher 
)
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How are you measuring? I always do by weight, but I know not everyone has a good scale. A lot of packaging seems to vary too, so you should consult your packaging for the most definite number. I pulled out my bag of sodium citrate and I’ll throw some numbers by weight and tsp:
5g of sodium citrate (approx 1tsp) = 1,210mg of sodium
1g would be 242mg of sodium
1.25g of sodium citrate (approx 1/4tsp) = 302.5mg of sodium
Unless you want to break it down further, being a little shy with 1/4tsp of measurement will get you there.
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I just want to add that using most food scales to measure in the single gram increments is going to be plus or minus…maybe 100%? At that point you’re best going to teaspoon, and fraction thereof, increments.
Yes agree
But problem is teaspoons come in different sizes also
Well they do in my draw anyways
The unit of measurement we are referencing is what you would utilize for baking, and not what general kitchenware utensils would refer to as a tsp.
In reference to the other comment about weight, if you have a quality food scale it’s not an issue. We have one for our espresso machine that is accurate down to the mg.
Referencing sodium in general, depending on your workout you could likely do over 250mg of sodium and see nothing adverse if you’re using sodium citrate. I’ve consumed over 1,000mg in an hour during heavy training without issue. Sodium chloride on the other hand could be problematic.
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I am curious what espresso scale weighs to the mg, or do you mean to 0.1 gram meaning to 100 mg. A scale (or more properly balance) that weighs to a mg (0.0001g) would be a bit over kill I would think.
It’s the MHW-3BOMBER electric scale, and it’s been very consistent in it’s measurements in the time we’ve owned it. It measures to mg increments, not to a single mg (which is actually 0.001g, just to clarify). So we are talking about 100mg increments. The swing on 100mg of sodium citrate is ~24mg of sodium, which is very unconcerning for sodium citrate based on tolerances.
I have an NDS-201 scale I can measure to the single mg if I wanted to, and even has calibration weights, but I can’t tare a container on it and never felt the need to be that precise with sodium citrate. I have that one for stuff I don’t want to buy in capsule form that I have a lower tolerance to, like highly concentrated ashwagandha extracts (ie ksm66 or sensoril).
strange your mg balance does not tare? I have always used Mettler analytical balances when weighing to 0.0001 mg and it is not a problem to tare it. What brands are the devices you just gave their product code not brand.
It’ll tar with the tiny tray, but I can’t fit whatever container I am using on it. Sorry, I could have definitely used more words explaining that.
thanks for the info.
Generally, I think consumer priced scales get more accurate the more weight you put on them. The less weight you get the more that margin of error becomes. When it matters to measure out the milligrams (let’s say you were measuring something deadly like caffeine), you’re going to want to bet your life on something more precise:
Most of the kitchen scales people use are for recipes involving hundreds of grams, not fractions of a gram, which is why I think the half or full teaspoon measurement is pretty sufficient for something like sodium. It’s not as if the analysis anyone did that spat out 250mg per hour of sodium needed is any more accurate than the scale anyway. But measuring 1 gram on most scales people have is problematic as the scales fluctuate up and down by 1 gram on their own so often.
I didn’t take into account consumer coffee scales that spit out those numbers for their marketing demographic – but I wouldn’t bet my life on them! But salt in any case you don’t need to sweat (heh) too much of the small stuff!
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