Capping 101

[GotTest]

With the economy the way it is now, I'm into saving some serious money, and capping your own stuff will help! Hope you guys find it useful!

Capping 101

In the pharmaceutical industry, the most common forms of mixing are spatulation(mix with spatula), trituration(uniform grinding), geometric mixing, sifting, and tumbling.
At the "Kitchen Chemist" level, the best for mixing low doses 10-100mg active ingredients mixed with inactive ingredients is the trituration, geometric mixing, then sifting.

STEP 1:
Calculating Powder Weight:
When choosing an inactive ingredient, try choosing one with a contrasting color to your active ingredient (ie white “active”, brown “inactive”). With two different colors you will later be able to see the distribution of ingredients when they are mixed.

Use your capping machine and fill one cap with powder, now multiply this by the number of caps to be filled to determine the Total amount of powder used. Don’t forget to tamp, and try NOT to overfill.
Example: 1 cap = 0.500g powder
50 caps = 25g Total powder

Calculate amount of Active ingredient to be used, multiplied by the number of caps, then subtracted from Total powder to fill caps to calculate Inactive ingredient.
Example: For 50mg Active ingredient
0.05g x 50caps = 2.5g Active
25g Total powder - 2.5g Active = 22.5g Inactive

STEP 2:
Trituration:
Grind both active and inactive ingredients separately so they are both the same “particle size”. The more uniform the particle size the more uniform the mixture. Think of pebbles and sand. Grinding can be done by mortar and pestal (found in most gourmet shops) or for us “kitchen chemists” a coffee grinder or flour sifter (depending on particle size) works fine.

Now, refill one cap with “inactive” and weigh powder again to determine if there is a MAJOR difference in weight from trituration of your “inactive”. This really depends entirely on “inactive” used. Some “inactives” take a little more grinding than others.

STEP 3:
Geometric mixing(Now Pay Attention):
Geometric mixing is one of the best ways to uniformly mix a small sample into a larger sample when dealing with dry ingredients.
Geometric mixing is performed by taking the smaller ingredient (the “active”) and mixing it with an equal amount of the larger ingredient (the “inactive”). Once these two ingredients are mixed, you again add an equal amount of “inactive” to the new mixture amount, and repeated until all “inactive” is added to the entire mixture.

Example: Take the 2.5g Active and 2.5g Inactive then place into a ziplock bag and begin mixing the 5g of mixture together. If you are using two different colors you should begin to see a nice even mixture throughout. I also like to blow a little air in the bag before zipping so the powder move freely. You can use a jar as well, but with the bag I can mix with my fingers if I need to.

Repeat the top step with the 5g of mixture and 5g Inactive, mixing them thoroughly together in the ziplock.
Continue this procedure until the entire 25g of powder are thoroughly mixed together.

Step 4:
Sifting:
This is what you might call the “I’m not confident in my geometric mixing step”. It is a procedure that some do “just to be sure” everything is thoroughly mixed. Recommended if you cannot find a contrasting color to mix with your active ingredient.

It’s easy, add the final mixture to a flour sifter and sift onto your capping machine, glassine paper, dinner plate, etc.

REMEMBER: Each time you transfer powder from one area to another, you WILL always leave a small residue behind (i.e. Coffee grinder, transfer paper, ziplock bags, sifter, etc) Which is why I’m not the fondest of doing a final sifting. I like to keep transfer as minimal as possible, and use smooth, nonporous surfaces. Powder really sticks to things!

Step 5:
Capping! Nuff said!

[Right Hook]

Phenomenal post my man. Got any recommended sources for inactive since the LB store currently does not offer anything?

[dinoiii]

Looks like a solid post.

Marked for in-depth analysis later-on.


D_

[LLLLern]

nice post man

[GotTest]

Thanks for the compliment man! I spend a hell of a lot of money on supps and capping really cuts cost for me.

As far as "inactives" go, you can use any cheap powder that mixes well and compliments the "active" you have on hand. I use the term "inactive" loosely. What I'm simply referring to is any powder that you are adding to your "active" or primary ingredient that will add bulk to the capsule. So you don't have 50mg "active" sitting in "00" capsule. Your inactive could actually be "useful", if you know what I mean.

Examples of cheap "useful inactives" :
Creatine Mono
Glutamine
Taurine
ZMA
Protein Powder (Chocolate makes a great contrasting color)

"Useless inactives"
Flour
Corn starch
Powdered sugar
Cocoa Powder (Another great contrasting color)

[GotTest]

Originally Posted by dinoiii

Looks like a solid post.

Marked for in-depth analysis later-on.


D_

Thanks Doc.
Who would of thought you can actually USE old books from college?!

Here is my main reference I blew the dust off of:
Ansel's Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms and Drug Delivery Systems
by Allen, Popovich, and Ansel

You may have this yourself.

[Right Hook]

Originally Posted by GotTest

Thanks for the compliment man! I spend a hell of a lot of money on supps and capping really cuts cost for me.

As far as "inactives" go, you can use any cheap powder that mixes well and compliments the "active" you have on hand. I use the term "inactive" loosely. What I'm simply referring to is any powder that you are adding to your "active" or primary ingredient that will add bulk to the capsule. So you don't have 50mg "active" sitting in "00" capsule. Your inactive could actually be "useful", if you know what I mean.

Examples of cheap "useful inactives" :
Creatine Mono
Glutamine
Taurine
ZMA
Protein Powder (Chocolate makes a great contrasting color)

"Useless inactives"
Flour
Corn starch
Powdered sugar
Cocoa Powder (Another great contrasting color)

Ahhh great point GT. I've been meaning to get more leucine and taurine in my diet.

[transXisomer]

great post mang

[transXisomer]

Originally Posted by GotTest

With the economy the way it is now, I'm into saving some serious money, and capping your own stuff will help! Hope you guys find it useful!

Aren't you a chemist? You make plenty of money dont you?

[mw1]

I am TOO impatient to do my own capping