[mick_the_brick]

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This post has been edited by erekose: 06 January 2009 - 06:14 PM

[V1nce]

Supplement Capping - by V1nce

With many raw powders being only 1/5th (or less) of the cost of the pre-capped products, it is no wonder many people are choosing to cap these supplements themselves and save a wad of cash. Anything from Glucosamine Sulphate to Taurine to Creatine Ethyl Ester can be purchased in powder form and capped to make a massive saving. Below i will cover the following items:

1. Equipment
2. The use of filler
3. Geometric Dilution
4. Capping Machines & the Capping Process


1. Equipment
You will need the following apparatus to be able to cap any powder of any sort:

- Scales (Accurate to 0.1g for most supplements, but for much lower doses you may need scales accurate to 0.001g, obtainable from E-bay)
- Capping Kit (Cap 'em quick is one example)
- Empty Caps (Size "00" are best)
- Raw Powder(Taurine, Creatine, etc purchasable from bulkpowders.co.uk, MyProtein, etc)
- Filler (This can be anything really but my preferred choice is Unflavoured Whey)
- An Empty Bowl and some tea spoons.


2. The use of filler
Filler is used to make the weighing process a lot easier and quicker. Fair enough, some additional mathematical work is required but this will still save a lot of time. If you were to make 100 caps of Green Tea @ 250mg per cap then you would have to weigh out 250mg 100 times! This would be very time consuming, not to mention downright frustrating! Measuring so accurately would also be extremely hard, as would trying to get this 250mg into the capsule without spilling any!

What using filler allows you to do, is to measure out the Green Tea once, aswell as measuring the filler out once. Because we know that the inclusion of filler will completely fill the capsule, we can happily pour in the mixture of Green Tea and filler until all the capsules are full. So we would measure out enough Green Tea for 100 caps of 250mg, which is 25g(100 x 0.250g). Remember there are 1000mg in 1g. The question is how much filler do we need??? Well this is the tricky bit for some:

Because the filler and the Green Tea powder will inevitably weigh different amounts, we need to work out how much of each one would fit in an entire capsule. This way we can then see the ratio from one to the other. So to do this we would load in all 24 caps as described in section 4, and pour in just Green Tea. Once the caps are completely filled, remove any excess powder. Empty these caps into a bowl and weigh the contents. For example lets say the total was 12grams, so 12 divided by 24 caps means that each capsules holds 500mg of green tea. Now do the same for filler, for example lets say this weighs 15 grams, so 15 divided by 24 caps = 625mg per capsule.

Green Tea = 500mg Filler = 625mg

Now that we have these 2 figures, we can work out how much of the capsule our 250mg of Green Tea will take up. 250 / 500 = 0.5 or 50% if you like. So we need to use filler for the other 50% of the capsule. We know that each capsule can hold 625mg of filler, therefore we need 50% of that, which is 625 x 0.5 = 312.5mg.

So the Total Amounts we require per capsule are 250mg of Green Tea and 312.5mg of Filler. Multiply these by 100 and we have 25grams of Green Tea and 31.25grams of Filler. We can now mix these in a bowl using geometric dilution as described below. We now have all of our powder ready for capping.


3. Geometric Dilution
This is the process of mixing which should allow for an even distribution of all powders used. For example of you were to mix 100g of Powder A with 2g of Powder B all in a bowl at once, then you would be very unlikely to get it spread evenly throughout the mixture. The process involves starting with the smallest quantity of powder(in this case 2g of Powder B) and adding to it equal quantities of Powder A.

So we start with 2g of Powder B and add 2g of Powder A and mix. Total powder in the bowl is now 4g. Remaining Powder A is 98g.
Next we add 4g(equal to the total amount of powder already in the bowl) of Powder A and mix. Total powder in the bowl is now 8g. Remaining Powder A is 94g.
Next we add 8g of Powder A and mix. Total powder in the bowl is now 16g. Remaining Powder A is 86g.
Next we add 16g of Powder A and mix. Total powder in the bowl is now 32g. Remaining Powder A is 70g.
Next we add 32g of Powder A and mix. Total powder in the bowl is now 64g. Remaining Powder A is 38g.
Now that the remainder of powder A is less than the total amount in the bowl, we will add in all of the remaining 38g and mix once again.

We now have 102g of powder which will be thoroughly and evenly mixed.


4. Capping Machines & the Capping Process

There are a few different types of capping machines available, the only one i have used is Cap 'em quick. Therefore this is the one i am going to explain. This can be bought from MyProtein, aswell as many other places I'm sure.

The capping machine hold 24 size "00" caps, assembly of the capping machine will be made clear from the attached instructions. The basic process is to take 24 empty caps, each cap will pull apart easily into 2 separate pieces, one longer than the other. The longer parts of the capsule are loaded into the main tray of the capping machine and the smaller parts of the caps will be loaded into the separate tray. Once these caps have now been loaded, you can pour in your powder which should be evenly mixed and spread it up and down the tray using the tool provided, or a credit card/playing card will suffice. This will fill the caps to the top and any residual powder should be put back in the bowl by gently tilting the tray, whilst being careful not to empty the contents of the caps!

Now we take the separate tray which is holding the 24 smaller halves of the caps, and place this on top of the capping machine with the caps facing down. This can now be firmly pressed down and if the tray has sunken in correctly then that will mean all of the caps have been attached. You can now proceed to press in the caps from the underside of the capping machine, to further push the two halves of the capsule together.

Now this has been done, the top tray can be removed and with it should come all of the capsules. It is now just a case of pushing the caps out from the underside of the tray and the job is done. Make sure whatever container you keep these in is clearly labelled, it is very easy to forget what is in the capsules, if you are always using the same filler than most of the caps you produce will look identical!

[mick_the_brick]

Awesome post mate....

Thankyou for your time on this

[Spukey]

Great post

[big_mal]

very nice post v1nce

[khany]

Excellent info Vince

[francesco totti]

So does any1 actually cap their vits & supps?

Seems like an easy way to do it by the description above

[Fah_Gedda_Boudit]

Excellent post V1nce.

I've spent many hours trawling through various forum's too find everything you've managed to condense into one article. Will save people a lot of time.

[V1nce]

Cheers guys, glad you like it.

Totti - Yes people do, i certainly do with things like green tea and ALA as the powder is so cheap compared to pre-made caps. These 2 inparticular dont seem to mix in water so capping is the only real option for the powder.

[khany]

k man, on Jun 5 2007, 05:14 PM, said:

Excellent info Vince

yes mate iv been capping my own stuff for a few years now

[Erekosë]

Nice one Vince - I've been thinking about doing this for some time, so the above will be most useful!

[OoOGazOoO]

Very good post that V1nce.

Its not so bad once you have done it once and have some figures to work with.

[Fah_Gedda_Boudit]

 Capsule_sizes___volume__mg___ml__Chart.jpg (87.03K)
Number of downloads: 29As caps & machines are available in several sizes, this is a handy reference guide. Volume is approx only tho', still need to work out specific powder density as per V1nce's instructions.

[mick_the_brick]

fah_gedda_boudit, on Jun 6 2007, 11:41 PM, said:

attachmentAs caps & machines are available in several sizes, this is a handy reference guide. Volume is approx only tho', still need to work out specific powder density as per V1nce's instructions.

Good post fgb

[khany]

Great info is this guys

if its ok we can include this in Fridays newsletter???