Creatine monohydrate is naturally found in the body of vertebrates and, put very simply, helps to supply energy to all of the cells in the body.

Creatine is frequently used by people interested in building muscle as it allows them to have more energy to lift in the gym and therefore put on more muscle by working harder.

However, if you asked most of them where it comes from, you’d only be faced by a series of blank-but-muscled stares. Well, it’s time to put this straight. Now at least you may sound a bit more clever on the gym floor (TOP TIP: just tell them you read it in a book rather than the internet).

A Simple Equation: Sarcosine + Cyanamide

All bought creatine is made synthetically, it’s only the stuff inside you that will come from meat or dairy. In fact it is only synthesised from two key components, sarcosine and cyanamide (not to be confused with the much less friendly cyanide).

Sarcosine is like a salt, but is actually sweet to the taste and dissolves in water. And cyanamide is a white solid that is used in manufacturing toothpastes, in agriculture and even as an alcohol deterrent drug.

These two ingredients are combined in a reactor with a few other catalyst compounds. The reactor is heated and pressurized to form creatine crystals. The crystalline creatine is then purified by centrifuge which spins out the unwanted bits. This is then vacuum dried.

The final dried creatine compound is then milled into a fine powder for improved dissolvability. Milling techniques differ quite a lot, which means a lot of brands have a different solubility and absorption. For instance, our Creatine Monohydrate is milled to ‘200 mesh’, which results in a very fine powder that dissolves incredibly easily. This results in particles that are 20 times smaller than regular creatine and allows your body to absorb it much faster and more efficiently.

This is what sets Raw Barrel’s Micronized Creatine apart from the crowd and we’re proud of it.

We like to add a few additional steps beyond the extra milling. We then test our product in house via a UV Spectrometer against a certified known standard, which lets us know that our creatine is 100% pure. And finally we send a sample of the finished product out to a third party lab for testing to ensure there are no microbiols or other nasties, making our supplement completely safe for personal consumption.

That’s how you get perfectly pure, micronized creatine monohydrate, ready to throw in your shake.

So the next time someone asks you ‘How is creatine made?’ you’ll get to sound like a genuis.