Energy drinks are a staple of those who want to get awake and energetic in a hurry. But what if said energy is not in enough of a hurry for your taste? After coming across a thrice concentrated energy drink, [Nile Blue] decided to make a 100 times concentrated Redbull.
Energy drinks largely consist of water with caffeine, flavoring and sugar dissolved inside. Because a solution can only be so strong, so instead of normal Redbull, a sugar free variant was used. All 100 cans were gathered into a bucket to dry the mixture, but first, it had to be de-carbonated. By attaching a water agitator to a drill, all the carbon dioxide diffused in the water fell out of solution. A little was lost, but the process worked extremely well.
From there, the Redbull was moved to a fancy vortex drying machine. While simply evaporating the water in a food dehydrator is an option, it takes a very long time and does not preserve the flavor. The solution to patience is expensive machines from China. This particular machine works by shooting in a mist of liquid into a vortex of hot air. This causes the solids to fall out of solution and separate into a powder which is collected. Much of the powder got caked in the vortex funnel and with much effort, a portion of it was removed by a chisel, and washing with water. Of course, the portion washed with water had to be dried in a food dehydrator, which took ten days. Unfortunately, the machine did not work perfectly and about 33.5 cans worth of Redbull powder where lost along the way.
To math the volume of a standard can of Redbull, all 250 grams of powder would need to be dissolved in a mere 250ml of water, a theoretical 67 times concentrated Redbull. While it did mostly dissolve into a somewhat grainy thick sludge, the powder added so much volume it ended up being equivalent to a 37 times concentration. A mere 7ml of this concoction amounts to a single Redbull, likely the strongest concentration of Redbull possible. Of course, for the full Redbull experience, the sludge was carbonated and finally packaged in an appropriate jar.
If you like strange and potentially dangerous chemistry hacks, make sure to check out this gold nanoparticle fabrication project next!
no comments.
WTF is “gold nonparticipant fabrication”?
Not sure, but https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/restoring-a-cheap-fume-hood/ leads to https://hackaday.com/2025/06/12/diy-calibration-target-for-electron-microscopes/
nanoparticle
This post seems to have a lot of typos, even by Hackaday standards. Fortunately autocorrect can replace them with correctly spelled incorrect words!
They’re committed to new lows every day.
A little was lost after the Hackaday was lost, but the process worked extremely well.
Meta! I love it.
36:20 for the taste test
I have made a version 500x stronger, ie 15g per 100mL of caffeine. Had to be made from the ingredient chemicals though.
Although interesting, this is a dangerous project because it concentrates caffeine to the point where there is a dangerous and potentially lethal dose within a beverage container.
Energy drinks typically contain a couple hundred milligrams of caffeine. When someone drinks a few grams of caffeine it can cause seizures, dangerous heart rhythms, and possibly death. Some quick math – if a redbull contains about 100mg of caffeine then concentrating it by 100x gives you a dose of 10 grams, which can kill an adult if they drink it. Keeping dangerous substances in food or beverage containers has caused a lot of poisonings over the years.
This is similar to concentrating other substances and creating something newly dangerous. For example a bottle of vape juice may have a dangerous or lethal dose of nicotine if someone drinks it. This is because it’s much more highly concentrated than the nicotine in a cigarette and the dose surpasses a toxic threshold.
You can say the same thing about the way I make coffee.
‘When french presses are outlawed, only outlaws will own french presses.’
Better example is Kratom.
Weak opiate, so legal in some places.
Now available in 100x concentrate at your local gas station.
Which will kill you dead…
‘Think of it as evolution in action!’
Came here to mention the potential danger of the resulting caffeine concentration, can now leave satisfied.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tasted pure coffeine. It should be really really hard to swallow those amounts without entering a vomiting contest. That stuff is bitter a frick.
redbull only 100mg of caffine. that’s only half a no-doz pill.
is dangerous?
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4102
There’s a chance drinking the whole thing would be a fatal dose of caffeine.
But it’s OK, he made a decaf version too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o
Hmmphh… amateur ! Daffy is the expert, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRMrlFRRJgY
Caveat: you can only do it once.
Pathetic beyond words. WTF is doing that here ?
I wonder if this comment refers to the video, youtuber, finished product, or the red bull?
Yes, it does
All of the above, plus whichever HaD editor decided it was a useful hack.
Still better than the twine wrapped old tire coffee table.
That was an ‘Arts&CraftsaDay’ low.
Strong caffeine is a traditional Hacker subject.
But generally has to be in consumable form, preferably coffee.
This is just an idiots attempt at a chemistry experiment.
Wow basically an AI that simply phoned it in, over a static sounding line and the SNR to match.
Wouldn’t it technically rise out of suspension?
What?
“HOW STRONG OF A REDBULL CAN YOU MAKE?”
Raise your hand if you read this title and then expected to read an article about container modifications or homebrew techniques/tools to corrugate sheet metal harvested from Redbull cans?
“HOW STRONG OF A REDBULL CAN YOU MAKE?”
Raise your hand if you read this title and then expected to read an article about container modifications or homebrew techniques/tools to corrugate sheet metal harvested from Redbull cans?
This is basically “How to Take Something Off the Shelf and Make it Poison”
Feel free to check my maths, and it’s a little hard to get an exact number, but it looks like LD50 on caffeine is estimated to be 150-200 mg/kg with fatalities identified as low as 57 mg/kg.
Depending on the can used, the caffeine in a single can is between 80-112 mg.
Take the multiplier for concentration of between 37 (the actual result) and 100 (the attempted concentration) and the sludge had, or could have had anywhere from about 3000 to 11000 mg of caffeine.
So, for say 65 kg person, LD50 is range of 3700 to 13000 mg of caffeine.
Presumably the broad range in LD50 is age, fitness, muscle mass, tolerance, etc.
Not sure if this is better or worse than his usual MO of “How to take off the shelf posion and make something edible”
Woot!
By my math, I can push my coffee even stronger.
I had been backing off the strength based on heart palpitations.
Doubt it’s much over 2000mg/day.
Ain’t easier to drop some acid in it? Sulfuric, hexafluoride, nitric, and maybe plain, mix a bit and taste the rainbow.
At least you can be the first (and only one) to enjoy (briefly) something new.
After things will settle, we’ll diy “real lava, lamps”.
Idiocy purely for the sake of being idiotic. Likely a future Darwin Award candidate … hopefully before he breeds.
At a certain point crack cocaine is a lot cheaper, simpler and probably has less risk of heart attack
pfff. I could have done that with a…
oh. wrong site. sorry…. i thought i was on hackaday.com
Standard RedBull gives you wings. That one would give you fins and a nozzle. However, drinking hydrazine seems little safer.
That guy must stay away from anything food related. Food is simply not his domain. He has terrible taste, obnoxious methodology when it comes to “food” in general, and his sense of “palatable” is comparable to the rotten scent emanating from a carcass attracting a vulture.
Besides, al this is technically “a wonderful idiosyncratic waste of time and resources” since all energy drinks are basically a solution of caffeine and as such it would only require caffeine and a solvent to create the “desired ultra-concentrate” and the inevitable trip to the emergency room of your nearest hospital. But hey…natural selection works in mysterious ways!
His goal isn’t to make food. It’s to make entertainment.
Or clickbait. I suspect he succeeded.
Wow, this one was from a while ago. I enjoyed his “pink gold” project.