A capsule machine is a truth device. Twenty dollars, a thousand empty caps for fifteen, and every 'serving' becomes a number you weighed instead of a blend someone else hid. One tray fills 24–100 caps — the whole setup costs less than a tub of branded pre-workout.
Read this twice, because it's where every undisclosed dose starts: capsule sizes are volumes. Size-00 = 0.95 ml, which is 570 mg of a fluffy powder or 1,140 mg of a dense one. The only number allowed on your label is the one your scale reported after a trial fill.
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.
Capsule or shaker — read the dose, then decide
Sort by dose size, the way a label would. Milligram-scale ingredients — caffeine, theanine, curcumin, huperzine — go in caps. Gram-scale ingredients go in liquid: creatine is five size-00 caps a day, and nobody sustains that.
Full transparency includes the shell. Gelatin is cheapest and dissolves fastest. HPMC ('veggie') handles hygroscopic fills better. Pullulan is the oxygen-barrier option for oxidation-sensitive powders. Name the shell on the jar too — every component disclosed.
What goes on your label
- Ingredient name — not a blend name, not an acronym you invented
- mg per capsule, weighed on your scale — not the size chart's estimate
- Capsule size and shell material
- Fill date and where the powder came from