The Trekking Pawns Make Homemade Electrolytes: We Actually Did It!
Remember our homemade electrolyte experiment?
In our last Trekking Pawns adventure, we discovered that LMNT has a recipe for making its electrolyte drink mix at home. The recipe looked simple enough: salt, potassium chloride, magnesium malate, water, and whatever flavoring we wanted.
So naturally, we had to try it.
And this time, we're reporting back with the results!
Spoiler alert:
It was ridiculously easy.
And perhaps more surprisingly...
30 servings took up way less space than we expected.
🛒 The Shopping Trip
Our mission was to get the ingredients we needed without spending a fortune.
We purchased:
- 🧂 Potassium chloride — 1 kilogram
- 💊 Magnesium malate — 1 kilogram
- ⚖️ Digital food scale
- 💰 Total spent: approximately $70
We did not buy sodium chloride.
Why?
Because we already had a giant container of Himalayan salt sitting in the pantry from Costco.
And honestly, it seemed a little silly to buy another container of salt when we already had enough to season approximately 14,000 meals.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration.
But you get the idea.
The food scale was a must
One thing we took seriously from the original LMNT recipe was the recommendation to measure the ingredients by weight rather than volume.
The recipe calls for:
- 75 grams sodium chloride
- 11.5 grams potassium chloride
- 11.7 grams magnesium malate
for a 30-serving batch.
That's where our inexpensive food scale came in handy.
Trying to measure 11.5 grams of potassium chloride with a teaspoon would have been... let's just say a little too much guesswork for our liking.
🧪 Making 30 Servings at Once
This was the part we were most curious about.
Rather than making one serving at a time, we followed the bulk recipe and made 30 servings in one shot.
We measured:
75 grams Himalayan salt
11.5 grams potassium chloride
11.7 grams magnesium malate
Then we mixed everything together really well.
That's it.
Seriously.
There was no elaborate kitchen chemistry experiment.
No blender.
No complicated equipment.
Just three powders and a scale.
The original LMNT recipe specifically recommends making a bulk batch and thoroughly mixing the ingredients before measuring individual servings.
🤯 But Where Did All 30 Servings Go?
Here's the part that surprised us.
We assumed 30 servings of electrolyte powder would make a reasonably large container.
Maybe we'd need a big mason jar.
Maybe we'd need a plastic food-storage container.
Maybe we'd be dedicating an entire shelf in the pantry to our new electrolyte empire.
Nope.
All 30 servings fit into HALF of a small canning jar.
Half.
A.
Small.
Canning.
Jar.
We actually had to laugh.
After purchasing two kilograms of electrolyte ingredients, we expected a much larger pile of powder.
Instead, our finished 30-serving batch looked like a tiny science project sitting at the bottom of a jar.
Apparently, electrolyte powder is very good at making us think we're getting a lot more than we actually are.
⚖️ How Much Is One Serving?
LMNT's recipe says that when using magnesium malate, each serving weighs approximately 3.3 grams.
So our 30-serving batch should weigh approximately:
3.3 grams × 30 = 99 grams
And that's about what you'd expect from the recipe:
75 g salt
- 11.5 g potassium chloride
- 11.7 g magnesium malate
= 98.2 grams total
Close enough to the approximate 99 grams once we're talking about a serving size rounded to 3.3 grams.
So our little half-jar contains roughly 100 grams of electrolyte mix.
That's a lot of hydration potential in a surprisingly small package.
🍋 Okay... But Does It Taste Good?
This was the real test.
Because let's be honest.
We could save a fortune making our own electrolyte powder.
We could make 100 servings.
We could put it in a beautiful jar.
We could label it with a fancy name.
But if it tastes like drinking ocean water...
We're going back to the store.
For our first drink, we kept things simple.
We added:
- 💧 Water
- 🧂 One serving of our homemade electrolyte mix
- 🍋 A splash of lemon juice
- 🍬 About one teaspoon of sugar
Shake it all together.
And...
Good to go!
The lemon made a huge difference.
It gave the drink some brightness and helped balance out the salty flavor. The little bit of sugar also made it much more pleasant.
It's definitely not a complicated beverage.
And that's actually what we like about it.
🥤 Our First Homemade Electrolyte Drink
Our basic Trekking Pawns version is now:
Homemade Electrolyte Mix + Lemon + Sugar + Water
That's our kind of recipe.
No complicated ingredient list.
No fancy equipment.
No individual packets.
And no need to carry around a box of electrolyte sticks.
LMNT's original recipe recommends adding one serving to 16–32 ounces of water and then adding flavoring as desired.
We found that adding lemon and a little sugar was enough to turn the basic mix into something we actually enjoyed drinking.
💰 Now Let's Talk Money
This is where things get interesting.
We spent approximately:
$70 total
That included:
- 1 kg potassium chloride
- 1 kg magnesium malate
- Food scale
We already owned the Himalayan salt, so we're not including a purchase price for the salt.
But how many servings can we actually make with those 1-kilogram bags?
Potassium chloride
The recipe requires 11.5 grams per 30 servings, or:
0.3833 grams per serving
We purchased:
1,000 grams
So:
1,000 ÷ 0.3833 ≈ 2,609 servings
Wait...
That doesn't sound right.
And this is where it's important to remember that the LMNT recipe's 11.5 grams of potassium chloride is for 30 servings, not one serving.
So let's calculate it correctly.
The 30-serving batch
Each 30-serving batch requires:
11.5 g potassium chloride
With 1,000 grams available:
1,000 ÷ 11.5 = 86.96 batches
That's enough for approximately:
2,609 individual servings
Now let's check the magnesium.
Each 30-serving batch requires:
11.7 g magnesium malate
With 1,000 grams:
1,000 ÷ 11.7 = 85.47 batches
That's enough for:
2,564 individual servings
So potassium isn't the limiting ingredient.
Magnesium malate is.
That means our 1-kilogram bags contain enough ingredients to make approximately:
🎉 2,564 servings!
That's a LOT of electrolyte drinks.
🤯 Wait... 2,564 Servings?!
Yep.
This is where buying the ingredients in kilogram quantities starts to make sense.
Our first 30-serving batch barely made a dent in the bags.
In fact, after making those 30 servings, we still had approximately:
988.5 grams of potassium chloride
and
988.3 grams of magnesium malate
remaining.
At the recipe's proportions, our purchased ingredients could theoretically make roughly 2,560 complete servings.
That's enough electrolyte mix to keep the Trekking Pawns hydrated for a very, very long time.
Or approximately enough to survive one extremely long road trip.
💵 What Does That Make Each Serving Cost?
Here's the fun calculation.
We spent:
$70
And we can make approximately:
2,564 servings
So:
$70 ÷ 2,564 = $0.027
That's approximately:
2.7¢ per serving
Now, there's an important catch.
That 2.7¢ figure includes the entire $70 purchase price, including the food scale, and assumes all of the purchased potassium chloride and magnesium malate can be used.
The food scale itself is reusable, so future batches will actually cost less.
We also aren't assigning a cost to our Himalayan salt because we already had it.
And we're not including the cost of lemon juice, sugar, or water.
So this is best thought of as a rough maximum-cost-per-serving calculation based on our $70 initial purchase, not the exact ingredient cost of each individual serving.
📊 The Numbers at a Glance
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Potassium chloride purchased | 1,000 g |
| Magnesium malate purchased | 1,000 g |
| Salt | Already had it |
| Initial purchase | ~$70 |
| Servings in first batch | 30 |
| Approx. total servings possible | 2,564 |
| Approx. initial cost per serving | 2.7¢ |
| First batch storage | ½ small canning jar |
That's pretty impressive.
Even if our actual ingredient cost calculation ends up being different because the $70 included the scale, the important takeaway remains:
Buying the ingredients in bulk gives us an enormous amount of electrolyte mix for relatively little money.
🧳 And This Could Be Great for Travel
Now we're starting to see the potential.
Our entire 30-serving batch fits into half of a small canning jar.
Imagine transferring a portion into a small, clearly labeled travel container.
Suddenly we've got an incredibly compact travel supply.
For the Trekking Pawns, that could be useful for:
✈️ Long travel days
🥾 Hiking
☀️ Hot-weather sightseeing
🚢 Cruise excursions
🏙️ Walking around cities all day
🚗 Road trips
And because we're adding our own flavor, we're not limited to whatever flavor happens to be available in a box of packets.
Today it's lemon.
Tomorrow?
Maybe lime.
Maybe orange.
Maybe we'll get adventurous and start experimenting with fruit.
🍋 The Lemon Test: PASSED
So what's our verdict after actually making the stuff?
We're impressed.
The recipe was easier than expected.
The ingredients took up much less space than expected.
The finished 30-serving batch fit into half of a small canning jar.
And the final drink?
Actually pretty good.
A splash of lemon juice plus a teaspoon of sugar was enough to make it something we'd happily drink.
Most importantly, we now have enough ingredients sitting in the pantry to make thousands of servings.
That's a lot of Trekking Pawns hydration.
🧂 Would We Do It Again?
Absolutely.
In fact, we've already done the hardest part:
Buying the ingredients and making the first batch.
Now it's just a matter of weighing out approximately one serving when we want a drink, adding it to water, and flavoring it.
The original LMNT recipe calls for approximately 3.3 grams per serving when using magnesium malate.
Our little jar is basically a homemade electrolyte refill station.
And considering that we expected 30 servings to take up considerably more room, we're pretty happy with how portable this turned out to be.
The Trekking Pawns rating:
Difficulty: ⭐ Easy
Cost: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Storage space: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Taste: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Travel potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Likelihood we'll make another batch: 100%
One Important Reminder
This recipe is based on LMNT's published homemade electrolyte formula, which provides approximately 1,000 mg sodium, 200 mg potassium, and 60 mg magnesium per serving.
That's a substantial amount of sodium and potassium, so this isn't something we'd recommend treating like ordinary flavored water or consuming indiscriminately. Anyone with medical conditions, dietary restrictions, or medications that affect sodium, potassium, or magnesium should check with a healthcare professional before using a concentrated electrolyte mix.
And, of course, this homemade mixture isn't a substitute for medical treatment or a medically formulated oral rehydration solution when someone is seriously dehydrated or ill.
For us, though?
It's a fun little DIY experiment that seems to have worked.
Next stop: figuring out how many different flavors we can make without turning the Trekking Pawns kitchen into a hydration laboratory.
Stay salty!
— The Trekking Pawns 🌎✈️🥤
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