Ask any mixing thread what fixes the taste, the portability and the scoop-guessing of loose powder and the answer comes back the same: a manual capsule machine. One tray fills 24–100 caps and costs less than a tub of branded pre-workout.
The question posted every single week — 'how many mg does a size-00 hold?' — is the wrong question, and the regulars say so. Sizes measure volume: a 00 holds 0.95 ml, which is 570 mg of a fluffy powder or 1,140 mg of a dense one. The community ritual: run a trial fill, weigh it, write the real number on the jar.
The size chart (mg depends on powder density)
| Size | Volume | ≈ mg @ 0.6 g/ml | ≈ mg @ 0.8 g/ml | ≈ mg @ 1.0 g/ml |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 000 | 1.37 ml | 822 | 1,096 | 1,370 |
| 00 | 0.95 ml | 570 | 760 | 950 |
| 0 | 0.68 ml | 408 | 544 | 680 |
| 1 | 0.48 ml | 288 | 384 | 480 |
The fill
- 01
Separate
Pull caps from bodies. Bodies go into the machine's tray, open side up.
- 02
Load
Spread your mixed powder across the tray and scrape it into the bodies with the card.
- 03
Tamp
Pack the powder with the tamper — each pass increases the fill weight. Tamp count = dose.
- 04
Cap & eject
Join the cap plate, press, done — a tray of finished capsules.
- 05
Verify
Weigh 5 finished caps on the mg scale. Divide by count. That number — not the chart — is your dose.
The canonical caps
The study stack
MOST-REPLICATED| Caffeine anhydrous | 100 mg | $0.05 |
| L-Theanine | 200 mg | $0.07 |
≈ $0.12 per cap
Fits a size-0 with room to spare. The caffeine:theanine ratio the research keeps confirming.
Curcumin + piperine
CLASSIC| Curcumin extract | 500 mg | $0.10 |
| Piperine (BioPerine-style) | 5–10 mg | $0.02 |
≈ $0.12 per cap
Piperine multiplies curcumin absorption ~20× (Shoba 1998) — the pair is the whole point.
What the community caps vs. what it drinks
The rule of thumb every recipe swap lands on: capsules are for small doses and bad flavors — caffeine, theanine, curcumin, huperzine. Gram-scale stuff goes in the shaker; the five-caps-a-day creatine routine is a habit nobody in the threads actually keeps.
Shell debates are mostly settled too. Gelatin is cheapest and dissolves fast. HPMC ('veggie') is the pick when the fill pulls moisture from the air. Pullulan is the oxygen-barrier option people reach for with oxidation-sensitive powders.
Trays of experience, condensed
- Work over parchment — spilled powder scrapes back into the dish instead of the bin
- Wash and fully dry the machine between powders; residue from the last batch rides into the next one
- Label the jar with the mg your scale reported, not the mg you hoped for — future-you will check
- Finished caps go in an airtight jar with desiccant; the threads' humidity horror stories all start the same way