Homemade Electrolyte Drink: Ratios That Actually Work

Commercial electrolyte mixes are water, salt, sugar, and flavouring wearing excellent branding. A homemade electrolyte drink built on the ratios sports medicine actually uses — the ACSM’s during-exercise targets and the World Health Organization’s oral rehydration formula — delivers the same working ingredients for pennies. The catch is discipline: the ratios are the product, and eyeballing them is how people end up drinking salt water that misses the point or sweet water that does nothing. Measure level teaspoons, at least until the recipe is muscle memory.

What are the two recipes worth knowing?

Recipe (per 1 litre of water)	Salt	Sugar	Sodium per litre	Use it for
Training drink	¼ level tsp fine salt (~1.5 g)	4–5 tbsp (~50–60 g) for ~6% carbohydrate, or none	~580 mg	Runs of 60 min+, training days
Strong training drink (salty sweaters, ultras)	½ level tsp fine salt (~3 g)	As above, to taste/tolerance	~1,150 mg	Long hot runs; high sweat-sodium runners
WHO home rehydration formula	½ level tsp fine salt (~2.9 g)	6 level tsp (~25–30 g)	~1,150 mg from salt	Illness losses, severe depletion, post-event rescue

Check the training recipe against the references. The ACSM recommends 0.5–0.7 g of sodium per litre in drinks for exercise over an hour — the ¼-teaspoon version lands at about 0.58 g/L, squarely in range. Fine table salt weighs about 6 g per level teaspoon and is ~39% sodium, which is where the arithmetic comes from: ¼ tsp ≈ 1.5 g salt ≈ 580 mg sodium. The carbohydrate at 4–5 tablespoons per litre gives 50–60 g/L, a 5–6% solution in line with the 6–8% carbohydrate range sports drinks target.

The WHO formula deserves respect rather than tinkering. It was designed for rehydrating people losing fluid fast — half a teaspoon of salt and six of sugar per litre — and the classic field check is that it should taste no saltier than tears. Notice it carries about twice the sodium of a training drink and less sugar than a sports drink: illness rehydration is a sodium problem first. Do not “improve” it with extra salt; too-concentrated solutions can worsen matters, especially for children.

How do you make it taste like something you will drink?

The base recipe is functional, not delicious. Three upgrades keep the ratios intact:

• Citrus: juice of half a lemon or lime per litre. Flavour, a little potassium, no meaningful change to the maths.
• Juice base: replace 250 ml of the water with orange juice for potassium (~450–500 mg per cup) and flavour, and cut added sugar to 2–3 tablespoons to keep total carbohydrate near target. This is the version most people settle on for electrolytes for long runs.
• Cold and dilution discipline: serve it cold; if the strong version tastes harsh mid-run, split the difference — ⅜ teaspoon — rather than abandoning sodium entirely.

Make it the night before long runs, refrigerate, and treat it like the rest of your electrolytes for runners plan: measured, rehearsed, boring. If you prefer to skip sugar entirely, read sugar-free electrolytes first — the sodium works without sugar, but the absorption and fuelling story changes, and on a three-hour run that change matters. Timing questions — when a homemade drink is actually needed versus plain water — are settled on when do you need electrolytes.

What are the common mixing mistakes?

Heaped teaspoons. A heaped teaspoon of salt can hold twice the level measure. In the WHO formula that error is the difference between rehydration and a hypertonic mistake. Level it with a knife, every time, or weigh: 1.5 g and 3 g are easy scale targets.

Flaky salt by volume. Kosher and sea-salt flakes are mostly air in a spoon. If that is your salt, weigh it or switch to fine salt for these recipes.

Skipping the sugar in the illness formula. The glucose is functional, not flavour — it drives sodium and water absorption. A “sugar-free ORS” is a contradiction for that use case.

Sharing adult ratios with small children. Children dehydrate faster and tolerate concentration errors worse. For a child with vomiting or diarrhoea, use commercial paediatric ORS at packet strength and seek medical advice early rather than scaling kitchen recipes by guesswork.

How do you scale it to a 500 ml bottle?

Most runners carry 500 ml, not a litre, so here is the litre math halved — and one variant worth knowing:

Per 500 ml water	Training strength	Strong / WHO strength
Fine table salt	⅛ level tsp (~0.75 g) → ~290 mg sodium	¼ level tsp (~1.5 g) → ~580 mg sodium
Sugar	2–2½ tbsp for ~6% carbohydrate	3 level tsp (~13–15 g) for the WHO ratio
Optional	Squeeze of lemon or lime	Juice base (below)

The eighth-of-a-teaspoon problem is real — nobody’s spoon drawer measures that honestly. Two solutions: batch a full litre and decant (recommended; the litre ratios are the ones worth memorising), or keep a tiny 0.75 g kitchen scale habit for a week until your eye calibrates. What not to do is round up “a bit extra for luck”: doubling the training recipe’s salt moves you to the strong column, which exists for salty sweaters and illness — know which drink you are making.

The coconut-water variant. Coconut water is the opposite of a sports drink: genuinely high in potassium (roughly 500–600 mg per 250 ml cup — brand-dependent, so treat it as a range) and low in sodium. As a recovery base it is pleasant and useful; as a during-run drink it under-delivers the mineral that matters most. The fix is arithmetic, not rejection: coconut water plus ¼ teaspoon of salt per 500 ml brings sodium into the training range while keeping the potassium. It will taste like what it is — salted coconut water — which some runners love at hour three and others cannot face. Rehearse it like everything else.

What not to add. Skip the internet’s extras: apple cider vinegar does nothing for electrolyte balance, baking soda in training drinks is a GI gamble (sodium bicarbonate is a real ergogenic with a real protocol and real side effects — it does not belong in a hydration bottle), and “a pinch of everything” mineral powders turn a measured recipe back into guesswork.

Can you make it ahead for a training week?

Yes, with one boundary: mix the dry ingredients ahead, not the finished drink. A small jar with the week’s salt pre-measured (7 litres’ worth of training strength = about 10.5 g of fine salt, a scant 2 level teaspoons) travels well and removes the daily measuring ritual that most people abandon by Thursday; add each day’s sugar at mixing time, since whether the day needs fuel is a daily decision. Keep the dry jar in the fridge door next to the bottle it fills, so the system is one gesture. What does not keep is the made-up drink beyond a day: no preservatives, a sugar solution, a warm car — that is a microbiology experiment, not hydration. Race-week exception: freeze a litre in the bottle the night before a hot long run and let it thaw in your hand; slush drinks are easier to get down at hour two, and the recipe survives freezing unchanged. The deeper principle is the same one the electrolytes for runners hub runs on: the plan you have rehearsed beats the plan you improvised, in the kitchen as much as on the course.

How does it compare in cost — honestly?

The arithmetic is the reason this page exists. Table salt and sugar are sold by the kilogram; a litre of training-strength homemade drink costs a few pence or cents in ingredients — roughly the price of the water if your tap is metered kindly. A commercial stick for the same litre costs thirty to sixty times that, and a ready-to-drink bottle more. Nobody sensible claims the commercial products are fraudulent: you are paying for flavour development, portioning, portability, and the guarantee that a factory measured what your spoon approximates. Those are real things. But a runner doing four long runs a month, fifty weeks a year, is looking at the difference between a trivial grocery line and a meaningful annual bill — and for the weekday long run, the kitchen version is not a compromise. It is the same sodium, measured by you instead of a machine.

Who should not use homemade electrolyte drinks?

• People with high blood pressure, heart failure, or kidney disease — the strong recipe carries over a gram of sodium per litre. If your sodium is medically restricted, these recipes need your clinician’s approval, and illness rehydration needs their involvement directly.
• People on diuretics, lithium, or blood-pressure medication. Fluid and sodium shifts interact with these drugs; ask your doctor or pharmacist first.
• Anyone pregnant using the strong formula for illness losses — vomiting in pregnancy that prevents keeping fluids down is a same-day medical conversation, not a kitchen fix.
• Infants and young children. Never give homemade solutions to infants; use commercial paediatric ORS and medical guidance.
• Anyone with confusion, fainting, no urination for many hours, or inability to keep any fluid down. That is beyond home rehydration. Seek medical care immediately — IV rehydration exists for exactly this point.