DIY SiS Beta Fuel: the most copyable branded fuel on the shelf
The most copyable branded fuel on the shelf. SiS's own marketing materials spell out the formula — there's no proprietary blend, no hydrogel trade secret, just commodity sugars at a research-backed ratio.
·By Croix
Educational, not medical advice. Recipes and dosages are starting points — individual tolerance varies. Consult a healthcare professional or registered dietitian before changing your nutrition strategy. Full disclaimer.
What am I actually paying Science in Sport for?
| Science in Sport Beta Fuel Powder | DIY recipe | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per serving | $2.70 | $0.90 |
| Cost per gram of carb | $0.034 | $0.011 |
| Carbs | 80g | 80g |
| Glucose:Fructose ratio | 1:0.8 | 1:0.8 |
| Sodium | 460mg | 460mg |
| Ingredients | Maltodextrin, Fructose, salt | Maltodextrin, fructose, salt |
| ~67% cheaper per serving |
Default recipe
~$0.90/serving- Maltodextrin46.3g
- Fructose36.0g
- Sodium Citrate1.0g
- Table Salt (NaCl)0.5g
- Potassium Chloride0.1g
- Magnesium Malate0.1g
- Water500ml
What do I need to buy?
Everything you need to mix this at home. We primarily recommend Nutricost-brand products (made in GMP-compliant, FDA-registered facilities, third-party tested) and fall back to NOW Foods or BulkSupplements for the few ingredients Nutricost doesn't stock. Each row shows the same product across Nutricost, iHerb, and Amazon — sorted by unit price, with the cheapest highlighted. Links are affiliate — we earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
- Maltodextrin46.3 g per serving
- Fructose36.0 g per serving
- Sodium Citrate1.0 g per serving
- Table Salt (NaCl)0.47 g per servingComing soon
- Potassium Chloride0.15 g per serving
- Magnesium Malate0.15 g per serving
Beta Fuel was reformulated in 2021 to the current 1:0.8 ratio without sucrose or electrolytes. If you're comparing notes against older recipes or pre-2020 product reviews, the prior formulation was materially different. Match the current label, not the archived one.
DIY wins
- The formula is effectively public — ratio, sources, and proportions are on the label. DIY is a photocopy, not a reverse-engineering project.
- ~$1.80 saved per bottle, roughly $90-110 per season of long rides, for a chemically identical drink.
- Matches the exact 1:0.8 research-backed ratio that hits the dual-transporter absorption ceiling.
Where Science in Sport still earns its price
- Pre-measured sachets are real value for travel, race mornings, and feed-zone handoffs.
- Commercial batch consistency and quality control beat kitchen-scale accuracy over time.
- Branded flavor packets (orange, lemon & lime, strawberry & lime) can't be perfectly replicated without SiS's proprietary flavor IP.
Is Science in Sport Beta Fuel Powder actually worth it?
SiS Beta Fuel is unusual among branded high-carb fuels: the formula is essentially public. The label and SiS's own marketing materials spell out the composition at roughly 57% maltodextrin, 42% fructose, about 1% flavoring and trace minerals. There is no hydrogel, no cluster dextrin, no proprietary blend behind a trade secret. DIY Beta Fuel is less a reverse-engineering project than a photocopy.
The macros land on the research sweet spot. 80g of carbs per 82g serving at a 1:0.8 glucose-to-fructose ratio (44g glucose from maltodextrin, 36g fructose) is what O'Brien & Rowlands' 2013 MSSE study identified as the practical dual-transporter sweet spot, and SiS was among the first mainstream brands to build a product explicitly around it. The 2021 reformulation stripped out the sucrose and the heavier electrolyte dose that the older Beta Fuel carried, leaving a near-pure fuel product. What's on your kitchen scale and what's in the SiS sachet are chemically the same drink once dissolved.
Economics: retail runs $2.70–$3.70 per sachet depending on whether you buy discount channels or brand-direct, with a 15-sachet box typically $40–55. DIY maltodextrin plus fructose at the matched ratio runs about 70¢ per 80g serving at bulk ingredient prices — a $2–3 delta on every bottle. Over a season of fifty or sixty long rides, that's $100–180 back in your pocket for a functionally identical drink.
Where SiS does earn its price is the parts you can't ship in a Ziploc: pre-measured single-use sachets, batch-consistent flavor, commercial quality control, and the ability to grab one from a feed zone mid-race. For travel, for race mornings, for situations where premeasured convenience is genuinely worth the premium, the branded product is a reasonable purchase. For training — for the 80% of long rides where you're filling bottles from a kitchen scale anyway — paying five times as much for the same sugars is harder to justify.
If there's a DIY-friendliest product on this site, it's this one. Maurten has the hydrogel. Tailwind has the all-in-one scoop. Precision has the sweat test. Beta Fuel is, more than anything else, a bag of matched-ratio sugar with a SiS logo on it — and the formula is public.
What's in this recipe?
Each ingredient links to a deeper guide — what it is, how it works in your gut, and where to buy it in bulk.
- Maltodextrin
The glucose-polymer workhorse in almost every high-carb sports drink — same energy as dextrose, far lower osmolality, nearly tasteless.
- Fructose
The GLUT5-transported sugar that lets you push past the 60 g/hr glucose ceiling — pair with maltodextrin at ~1:0.8 for the modern dual-transporter formula.
- Sodium Citrate
A smoother-tasting sodium source than table salt — the alkalising buffer commercial drinks use to dose sodium without the bite.
- Table Salt (Sodium Chloride)
The cheapest, most-bioavailable sodium source in your kitchen — pennies per gram and chemically identical to what's in any electrolyte tab.
- Potassium Chloride
The cheapest, densest source of potassium for sports drinks — same form LMNT, Tailwind, and Precision Fuel use.
- Magnesium Malate
The magnesium form LMNT chose for Recharge — highest elemental-Mg fraction of any common powder, clean taste, well-tolerated.
How do I tune this for my own ride?
The builder below is pre-loaded with the Science in Sport Beta Fuel Powder recipe. Drag the sliders to tune carbs, ratio, or sodium to your own sweat rate and ride duration.
Frequently asked questions
Is SiS's Beta Fuel formula really public?+
Effectively, yes. The ratio (1:0.8 maltodextrin to fructose), the sources (corn-derived maltodextrin, crystalline fructose), and the rough proportions (57%/42% of the carb content) are either on the label or in SiS's own published materials. Competitors keep this closer to the chest. SiS has leaned into research-transparency as part of their brand identity, and that transparency is what makes DIY so clean here.
Why does Beta Fuel have almost no sodium (460mg per serving)?+
SiS deliberately reformulated Beta Fuel in 2021 to strip out electrolytes and position it as a pure fuel product. They sell SiS Go Hydro separately as the electrolyte pair. This is the same decoupling Precision uses — keep carbs and sodium as independent levers so you can adjust them separately for heat and intensity. If you're racing in warm conditions, plan to add 300-500mg of sodium per bottle, whether you're using the sachet or the DIY mix.
Do pro cycling teams actually use Beta Fuel?+
Yes — SiS was the long-time fuel sponsor of Team Sky and then Ineos Grenadiers, among others. What the pro riders consume is the same commercial formula on the shelf. Sponsored teams aren't getting a secret better version; the research-backed ratio is the entire product.
How does Beta Fuel compare to Maurten if I'm deciding which to copy?+
Both target 80g carbs at a 1:0.8 ratio. Maurten adds the hydrogel (a real but modestly-supported-by-independent-evidence delivery mechanism) and charges $3.75. SiS strips back to the core formula and charges $2.70–$3.70 depending on channel. DIY matches the macros of both for roughly 70–80¢. If you're copying anyway, SiS is the one you're reproducing completely — DIY Maurten misses the hydrogel texture; DIY Beta Fuel misses nothing.
What's the simplest shopping list for DIY Beta Fuel?+
Nutricost Maltodextrin Powder (8 lb, ~$38 direct from nutricost.com — the 8 lb size cuts unit cost roughly in half vs. the 2 lb bag, which is also stocked on iHerb and Amazon), NOW Foods crystalline fructose (3 lb, ~$14 on Amazon or ~$16 on iHerb — Nutricost doesn't currently stock fructose, so NOW Foods is our preferred fallback), table salt, and whatever citrus flavoring you prefer. Per 80g serving: 44g maltodextrin, 36g fructose, a small pinch of salt, and optionally a dash of citric acid and a few drops of lemon or orange flavor.
Will DIY Beta Fuel taste like the real thing?+
Closer than any other DIY-to-branded match on this site. Beta Fuel's current flavors (orange, lemon & lime, strawberry & lime) come from citric acid and natural flavor oils that are cheap to add at home. Without flavoring, the DIY version is nearly taste-neutral — maltodextrin is almost flavorless and fructose contributes a clean sweetness. Add 0.5g citric acid and a flavor extract and most people can't tell the difference.
Also worth looking at
- DIY Maurten 320: the same 1:0.8 formula for a fraction of the price
- DIY Skratch Super High-Carb: the glucose-heavy outlier, copied honestly
- DIY Tailwind Endurance: tune sodium to your own sweat rate
- DIY Precision PF 30: replace the fuel, not the sweat test
- DIY Neversecond C30: the research-forward gel without the $3.50 price tag
- DIY Maurten Gel 100: the gel half of the $3.50 hydrogel argument
- DIY Tailwind High Carb: 90g of race fuel from grocery-store sugar
- DIY GU Roctane: the premium-tier GU gel without the $2.40 markup
- DIY Skratch Sport Hydration: real-fruit flavor without the $1 scoop