Back in my homemade drink mix post I promised a reader I’d have a crack at homemade energy gels. It took a few batches, and one very sticky stovetop, but I’ve finally landed on a recipe I’m genuinely happy with. It’s my homemade replica of the Precision Fuel PF 90 Gel: 90g of carbs in a 153g serve, with a mild flavour and a smooth consistency that goes down easy. It costs me under $1.40 a 90g gel instead of $10.
I’ve been meaning to share this for a long time. I love pre-packaged gels and drink mixes (note the Moor Endurance endorsement) for their convenience but the costs can be prohibitive. This is a way of lowering the costs of running to help keep the sport accessible on a lower budget.
This post covers the recipe, how to make it, what every ingredient is doing in there, and where to buy it all in Australia.
What I Wanted From a Homemade Gel
Before I started mixing powders, I set myself a few criteria. Any recipe had to tick all of these:
- Gentle on the stomach. I want to take in 90g of carbs an hour without GI drama, so the gel needs a mild flavour and a texture that goes down easily.
- A mix of carb types for steady energy. Maltodextrin (glucose) and fructose are absorbed through different pathways in the gut. Combining them at 2:1 lets you absorb more carbs per hour than glucose alone.
- Easy to make in bulk. One saucepan, one session, a few days’ worth of gels. No fancy equipment beyond kitchen scales and a stick blender.
- Cheap compared to commercial gels. If it doesn’t save serious money, it’s not worth the effort.
- Fits into soft flasks or gel bottles. It has to be runny enough to squeeze out of a soft flask mid-run, but thick enough not to slosh around like a drink.
Gel Recipe
I still hate long-winded recipe intros, so here it is. This makes one 90g carb gel. Use the calculator below to scale it up to a 4.5x batch, which is what I make.
Ingredients (1 gel)
- 63g maltodextrin
- 30g fructose
- 1g pectin
- 0.75g sodium alginate
- 0.5g citric acid
- 63.5g water, just boiled (57g plus 10% to cover evaporation)
Method
- Weigh all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix them together really well
- Tip the dry mix into a saucepan
- Boil the kettle
- Put the saucepan on the scales, tare it, and add the exact amount of water
- Put the saucepan on the hotplate over a low-medium heat
- Heat and whisk until all the powder has dissolved. A stick blender (wand) is great for smashing up any stubborn clumps
- Let it cool down a little, then pour into gel flasks
- Refrigerate or freeze. Use within a month or so from the fridge; it lasts a long time in the freezer
Why the extra 10% water? You lose a bit of water as steam while heating and whisking. Adding 10% extra up front means you end up close to the target 153g gel with roughly 59% carbs, the same as a PF 90.
Nutritional Information
| Ingredient | Weight (g) | kCal | Carb (g) | Sodium (mg) | Cost / Serve |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maltodextrin | 63 | 240.9 | 59.9 | 31.5 | $0.63 |
| Fructose | 30 | 123.3 | 30.0 | 0 | $0.50 |
| Pectin | 1 | ~2 (fibre) | 0 | 0 | $0.15 |
| Sodium alginate | 0.75 | ~1 (fibre) | 0 | ~80 | $0.09 |
| Citric acid | 0.5 | ~1 | 0 | 0 | ~$0.01 |
| Water (+10%) | 63.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $0.00 |
| Total | 158.75 (≈153 after cooking) | ~370 | 89.9 | ~115 | $1.38 |
Recipe Calculator
Trail Flow · Recipe 3.2
Homemade PF 90 Gel Calculator
| Ingredient | Weight (g) | Carb (g) | kCal | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maltodextrin | 283.5 | 269.3 | 1084 | $2.83 |
| Fructose | 135.0 | 135.0 | 555 | $2.23 |
| Pectin | 4.50 | – | – | $0.67 |
| Sodium alginate | 3.38 | – | – | $0.42 |
| Citric acid | 2.25 | – | – | $0.06 |
| Water (+10%) | 285.8 | – | – | – |
| Total | 714.4 | 404.3 | 1639 | $6.20 |
Tip: once you get up to a 4× recipe, I recommend adding an extra half batch to cover the gel left behind in the saucepan.
Water includes 10% extra to cover evaporation while heating. Costs use Australian retail prices as of November 2026.
Note: all cost estimates are approximate and subject to the raw ingredient costs, buying in bulk or shopping around can further bring prices down
Why Replicate the PF 90 Gel?
The PF 90 is a big 153g pouch with 90g of carbs at a 2:1 glucose to fructose ratio. That’s basically an hour of fuel in one hit. It has a mild, neutral flavour, so you don’t get the sickly sweet taste fatigue some gels give you late in a long day. I really like it. What I don’t like is the price: about $10 per gel at Aussie running shops (Pushys, Blue Mountains Running Co). If you’re targeting 90g of carbs an hour, that’s $10 an hour just to stay fuelled.
The ingredient list on the pouch is short: maltodextrin, water, fructose, pectin, citric acid, and two preservatives, potassium sorbate and calcium lactate. That made it a great candidate for a homemade copy. My recipe matches their carb ratio and serve size. I’ve left out the preservatives, which is why mine lives in the fridge or freezer. I’ve also added a small amount of sodium alginate to help get a similar smooth, slightly thick texture.
The ratio works out neatly: 63g of maltodextrin gives about 60g of glucose, and 30g of fructose gives exactly 30g. That’s 2:1. In the drink mix post I went with SiS Betafuel’s 1:0.8 ratio. Since then I’ve drifted back to 2:1 because I find it easier on the palate, and I’m mostly targeting 70–90g/hr these days.
How the Recipe Evolved
It took five versions over a couple of months to get here. I kept notes on every batch, so here’s the full story, failures and all.
| Version | Date | Pectin | Sodium alginate | Citric acid | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1: Maurten 320 replica | Jul 2025 | 1.25g | 1g | – | Too gluggy, hard to get out of the flask |
| 2: First PF 90 replica | 31 Jul 2025 | 0.74g | – | 1.7g | Too runny and too sour |
| 3: Refined PF 90 | 30 Aug 2025 | 1.25g | 1g | reduced | Good texture, a bit gritty |
| 3.1 | 13 Sep 2025 | 1.25g | 1g | 0.75g | The winner |
| 3.2 (current) | – | 1g | 0.75g | 0.5g | Smoother and subtler |
Recipe 1: Maurten 320 Replica
My first attempt wasn’t a PF 90 copy at all. I followed this budget homemade gels guide on Reddit, which replicates the Maurten 320 drink mix into a gel form using pectin and sodium alginate. My 5x batch was 240g maltodextrin, 160g fructose, 6.25g pectin and 5g sodium alginate, stirred together in a jug with 160g of boiling water.
It was somewhat of a fail. Somehow it ended up really thick and gluggy, and I struggled to get it out of my flasks. The flavour wasn’t great either. It did teach me the flask maths, though: a Koda flask (these are $3 each, cheap way to contain your gels) held about 89g of carbs and my silicone flask about 104g.
Recipe 2: First PF 90 Replica
Next I switched targets to the PF 90 and went for a 2:1 glucose to fructose ratio. I reverse-engineered the water content from Precision’s nutrition panel and pouch weight. The pectin amount came from a Jon Albon video, and the citric acid from Jim Downing’s DIY endurance carbs recipe. I left out the sodium alginate this time to keep it closer to the PF 90 ingredient list.
Per gel, that was 63g maltodextrin, 30g fructose, 0.74g pectin, 1.7g citric acid and about 58g water. I made a 2x batch with 15ml of extra water for evaporation. It swung too far the other way. It was too runny without enough gelling agent, and way too acidic.
Recipe 3: Refined PF 90
For Recipe 3 I brought the sodium alginate back (1g per gel), upped the pectin to 1.25g and cut back the citric acid. The flavour was much more palatable and the consistency was good. The only issue was some grittiness, which I think was undissolved fructose.
Recipe 3.1: The Winner
Recipe 3.1 made three changes:
- Scaled up to a 4.5x batch
- Reduced citric acid to 0.75g per gel
- Used a stick blender to break up clumps while heating
The stick blender sorted out the grittiness. The consistency was good, the flavour was nice and subtle, and I could get it down easily. My notes from that day just say “This batch is a winner!!”
Recipe 3.2: Fine Tuning
The current version is a small tweak on 3.1. I reduced the pectin to 1g, the sodium alginate to 0.75g and the citric acid to 0.5g. I also added 10% extra water to cover what steams off while heating. That’s the recipe at the top of this post.
Key Ingredients
Maltodextrin
Maltodextrin is the workhorse of the gel and supplies two-thirds of the carbs. It’s made from corn starch and is basically a short chain of glucose molecules, so your gut breaks it down into glucose quickly. It’s barely sweet, which is the secret to a gel you can keep eating for hours. I still get mine from Bulk Nutrients: $49.85 for 5kg, or about $0.63 per gel.
Fructose
Fructose is fruit sugar. It’s absorbed through a different transporter in the gut from glucose, which is how you get past the roughly 60g/hr ceiling of glucose alone. It’s a lot sweeter than maltodextrin, so it’s the main source of flavour here. A 2kg lot on eBay cost me $33.
Pectin
Pectin is the stuff that sets jam. It’s a soluble fibre extracted from citrus peel or apples. In the gel it gives body and stops it being a runny syrup. Jam-style (high methoxyl) pectin likes exactly the conditions in a gel: loads of sugar and a bit of acid. You only need 1g per gel, so a small packet lasts ages.
Sodium Alginate
Sodium alginate is extracted from brown seaweed and is used as a thickener in everything from ice cream to sauces. It gives the gel a smooth, slightly thick, almost jelly-like texture that sits in your mouth nicely without being gloopy. It’s the main reason for clumping, though. Alginate grabs water fast and forms little lumps if you dump it straight in. Mixing it really well through the sugars first and giving the pot a blast with a stick blender solves this.
Citric Acid
Citric acid is mainly in there for flavouring and helping to cancel out some of the sweetness. The amount of citric acid to add can be down to personal preference. It is an ingredient worth experimenting with. It’s not compulsory but nice to add some subtle flavouring.
Water
It seems obvious, but the water amount is what makes or breaks the consistency. Too little and you get a thick paste that’s hard to get out of a flask. Too much and it’s watery and the carb density drops. Weigh it on the scales rather than using a measuring jug. Start with just-boiled water so everything dissolves faster.
Where to Buy and Cost per Serving
Each homemade gel costs me about $1.38 in ingredients, against roughly $10 for a PF 90. That’s a saving of over $8 a gel, or about 86%.
Where I Buy Mine
| Ingredient | Where I buy it | Pack | Price | Cost per gel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maltodextrin | Bulk Nutrients | 5kg | $49.85 | $0.63 |
| Fructose | eBay | 2kg | $33.00 | $0.50 |
| Pectin | Amazon, or Buy Organics Online (Lotus citrus pectin) | 100g | $14.95 | $0.15 |
| Sodium alginate | eBay | 100g | $12.50 | $0.09 |
| Citric acid | Coles / Woolies baking aisle | 150g | a few dollars | ~$0.01 |
| Total | $1.38 |
The pectin and sodium alginate look pricey per gram, but you use so little that a 100g bag goes a long way.
Other Places to Buy
- Dextro Delight is a Melbourne-based supplier that sells both maltodextrin and fructose in 0.5kg, 1kg, 2.5kg and 25kg bags, shipped Australia-wide. Small bags start under $10. It’s handy to get both carbs in one order, and the 2.5kg bags are a good size for regular gel making.
- Buy Organics Online sells Lotus fructose for $11.87 per kg. That’s cheaper than my eBay fructose, and you can grab the pectin in the same order.
- The Melbourne Food Depot is a specialist ingredient shop with food-grade sodium alginate and several types of pectin. It costs more, but it’s a reliable Aussie option if you’d rather not buy from eBay.
- Homebrew shops often stock maltodextrin and are worth checking out locally.
Once you normalise it, the homemade gel costs about $0.38 per 100 kCal.
Tips and Storage
Tips for a Smooth Gel
- Mix the dry ingredients first. Pectin and alginate clump if they hit water on their own. Spreading them through the maltodextrin and fructose separates the particles so they hydrate evenly.
- Use a stick blender. A whisk gets you most of the way there, but a quick blast with the wand smashes any lumps that are left.
- Low and slow. You’re dissolving, not boiling. Keep the heat low-medium so it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.
- Make a bigger batch. It’s the same amount of washing up for one gel or four. If you’re making four or more gels, add an extra half batch to cover what sticks to the pot.
- Weigh everything. Small differences in the pectin, alginate and acid make a noticeable difference to texture and taste, so a set of 0.01g jewellery scales is worth the $15.
Storage
There are no preservatives, so treat it like fresh food. Keep it in the fridge and use it within about a month, or freeze it, where it lasts a long time. A handy approach is to freeze most of a batch and pull a gel out the night before a long run. Wash your flasks well between batches.
Results so Far
Now that I’ve nailed the recipe, I can smash a lot of this gel without any issues. The flavour is subtle, the consistency is spot on, and I can keep taking it in hour after hour without any taste fatigue. It can be paired with my homemade drink mix for the ultimate cheap fuelling combo. Although I have been combining it with Moor Blackcurrant Drink mix and having great results.
I fuelled at the GPT100 miler last year using a combination of homemade energy gels and Moor drink mix. I was going so strong for the first 85km, then my race went downhill, but that wasn’t due to poor nutrition but rather mild hypothermia.
Things I’m keen to try next:
- A caffeinated version for the back end of long races
- Natural flavouring options like lemon or berry
- Maple syrup as a flavouring. I tried it once and it wasn’t great, but it’s still worth exploring
If you give it a go, let me know how you get on in the comments. I’d love to hear what tweaks work for you!
Joseph Nunn: An avid trail runner based in Hobart, Tasmania. He loves getting out for big days on the trails with mates or racing against them.
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