Guest - Not logged in | ||||||||||||||||||
Reviews > Food > Energy Bars and Drinks > R W Knudsen Recharge Sports Drink > Test Report by Ray Estrella
R.W. Knudsen Recharge natural sports drink mix
INITIAL REPORT - September 08, 2011
TESTER INFORMATION
I've been backpacking for over 30 years, all over California, Minnesota, and many western states. I hike year-round in all weather, and average 500+ miles (800+ km) per year. I make a point of using lightweight gear, and smaller volume packs. Doubting I can ever be truly UL, I try to be as light as I can yet still be comfortable. I start early and hike hard so as to enjoy the afternoons exploring/chilling. I usually take a freestanding tent and enjoy hot evening meals. If not hiking solo I am usually with my brother-in-law Dave or my twin children. The Product
Manufacturer: Knudsen & Sons Product Description
The R.W. Knudsen Recharge natural sports drink mix (hereafter called Recharge or the drink mix) is a powdered electrolyte replacement drink mix aimed at people that prefer a natural product without added sugar. This appeals to me for a lot of reasons. Field Conditions
These are some of the trips I used the Recharge drink mix on over the course of the test period. I took the Recharge mix on a four-day backpacking trip on the Superior Hiking Trail along Lake Superior's North Shore. This trip saw some rain, but mostly nice days with temps between 82 and 44 F (28 to 7 C). The trail varies in elevation from 600 to 1800 ft (180 to 550 m). Next was a trip in the Paul Bunyan State Forest on the North Country Trail. It too rained on this trip and temps were about 68 F (20 C) for a high. The picture above is a shot of the Orange flavor sitting while I am waiting for my dinner water to heat on the shore of Waboose Lake. The following week saw me driving and day-hiking all over Chippewa National and Paul Bunyan State Forests as I pre-scouted locations for this winter's snow-packing trips. I stayed on Hungry Man Lake. I took the mix to Washington and Oregon for three days of hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail. This trip saw temps at 40 F (4 C) with rain on two days, and even sleet on one cold windy ridge. Another pre-scouting trip was up and down the Red River of the North verifying that canoeist's primitive river camp sites would work for sled-packing trips this winter. I camped at Buffalo River State Park. Temps got down to only 45 F (7 C), much higher than normal this time of year. I took them on a three-day 34 mi (55 km) backpacking trip on the North Country Trail south of Leech Lake in Chippewa National forest. Observations
Well I think I found out why the sodium level is so low in the Recharge drink mix. There is just not enough flavor to cover any more than it has in it already. While I normally like orange drinks this was my least liked flavor of the batch. The smell was faintly orange and the initial taste was just as faint, completely washing out the second I swallowed. The tropical flavor actually looks just like red grapefruit juice in appearance, kind of a red tinted dark orange. It smells perfectly like fruit punch and has an initial explosion of great tropical fruit punch flavor that dissipates extremely fast. This was my second favorite flavor. Here is some tropical on the Superior Hiking Trail. The tubes that the Recharge comes in had about a 40% failure to tear rate for me. Often when pulling at the tear point it will tear just to the seam at the back of the tube and then just tear downward instead of across. This leads to a mess if I tore it too far. I learned to just pull my knife and cut the tube at the top if this happened. When pre-mixing at home in preparation of the first days hiking I just used my kitchen shears on the tube and didn't even bother with tearing it. Another problem I ran into was getting the mix to, well, mix. Only the lemon dissolved well every time. The tropical was OK, the grape worse and the orange was ridiculous. Here is a shot of the orange flavor after shaking it vigorously off and on for three minutes. I had a major froth in the bottle but still had lots of un-dissolved chunks of powder. When hiking with my brother-in-law Dave I will sometimes bring rum or vodka to add to my drink mix for trail cocktails at the end of the day. The Recharge does not work well at all for this use. There is not enough flavor to cover the alcohol and the result is very harsh. I only tried that on one trip. As far as the electrolyte replacement goes I have to assume that it did fine there as I never experienced any cramping in my muscles at night while on the trail. (Cramps are a good sign that potassium is lacking.) But much of my trips were in cooler or rainy weather so I was not sweating as much as I would have been in southern California. I really like the idea of the Recharge sport drinks and hope that R.W. Knudsen continues to tweak the taste and performance of it. Should I hear that they have reformulated it I will surely try it again. I would like to thank both them and BackpackGearTest.org for letting me participate in the testing of it. This report was created with the BackpackGearTest.org Report Writer Version 1.5 Copyright 2011. All rights reserved. Read more gear reviews by Ray Estrella Reviews > Food > Energy Bars and Drinks > R W Knudsen Recharge Sports Drink > Test Report by Ray Estrella |