Wondering does anyone else have difficult mixing Huel by hand? It seem’s almost impossible to me. It just seems to turn into an undrinkable sludge. Is it because I’m putting too much? I’m using it to replace my lunch at work, so 1/3 of my daily intake which is around 4 scoops. I have a NutriBullet which blends it perfectly, but I’m going away soon and would like to take the Huel with me, maybe I’ll just end up eating the sludge with a spoon.
I have no problems mixing 3-4 scoops in a shaker with 500ml of water… it works just fine: shaken, not stirred.
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I find that if I mix 3 scoops with 500ml it does’t give you much room to actually shake it up without causing it to stick to the top of the shaker, or cause lumps (I never get lumps anymore though) so what I do is put in 1.5 scoops, shake it up for 10 seconds, then another 1.5 scoops and shake for another 10 seconds. 99% of the time my Huel has no lumps and doesn’t stick.
But I must admit, there isn’t much space once you have 3 - 4 scoops and 500ml in the shaker.
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Hm… I admit I am using a 700ml shaker (not Huel)… no problems there.
Same. Do you never get it sticking to the top of the shaker? I sometimes get that if I add too much Huel into it at once 
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Maybe a bigger shaker is an option then, I am using the standard one you get with the first purchase.
My shaker has a little grid to insert, which seems to break up the Huel layer, when shaking upwards. That works quite well for me. I assume that this grid is standard as I just got me the cheapest option I could find, as I would sometimes leave at work and it might go AWOL there.
I would look at investing in a mixer ball - or a shaker with a mixer ball supplied. They break down any lumps without issue, in my case anyway.
Personally when I mix by hand, I add about 200ml water (or almond/coconut milk etc.) then my Huel scoops - I use a digital scale for the amounts I require - then top up with water (or almond/coconut milk - whatever) up to about 600ml in total as I like a filling intake. You could top up less, it’s just to give an idea.
I shake until it’s going out of fashion - part exercise part Hueling. Then I refrigerate and that changes the texture again.
Hope that helps.
Try the unflavoured Huel - mixes very easily. My first pack was Vanilla and that was impossible (well very hard) to get consistent. It is one of the few problems with Huel, Vanilla is not to everyone’s taste and consistently people complain about it’s water resistant properties 
Oh yes, I am using the Vanilla one, I didn’t realise the Unflavoured was easier to mix, I may order that one next time. Though I am quite happy with the flavour of Vanilla.
I’m beginning to think unflavoured is easier to mix as well. It would be good to get an official word on this. I don’t have any lumps anymore when I use unflavoured.
The vanilla flavour has more Gum Arabic which is a thickener/emulsifier than the unflavoured version, which is why it might be easier to get fewer lumps. Normally people say they’d prefer the unflavoured to be more like the vanilla, not the other way around though, so interesting that you like it more. @Julian might be interested in that.
Just in case it’s useful for anyone, I’ve found taking the ice guard out of the shaker makes it mix much better. As does adding ice, which seems to work as something of a fake mixing ball.
In twitter conversations with American friends a number are doubtful about Huel because of Sucralose which, at least stateside, has an increasingly bad rep. Having said that the alternatives are probably worse.
Sucralose does have a bad rep, especially because of Splenda which is what people often assume Sucralose is. So much so that our very own James Collier Bsc (Hons) RNutr actually wrote an article on it to tackle some of the questions that come up:
People often ask that we use Stevia, which is a natural sweetener that comes from the Stevia Rebaudiana plant, which we use in our individual flavour pouches. The problem is with Stevia is that in small amounts it is fine, but when used in larger amounts, like we’d have to with Huel, it leaves a bitter after taste which doesn’t make Huel very palatable. We could use sugar, but Stevia is 200 times sweeter than sugar, and Sucralose 400 I believe, so we’d have to use an incredible amount of it, which obviously would make Huel less healthy.
We have tried other Sweeteners, but they either suffer from the same bad rep that Sucralose has, are bad for you or just don’t anywhere taste as nice.
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The trick to shaking it by hands seems to be to start with less. So try this:
- Put in 300-400ml water
- Add 2 scoops
- Shake for 10 seconds
- Add in another scoop and a bit more water
- Shake for 10 seconds
- Add in another scoop and a bit more water
- Shake for 10 seconds
Also, a mixer ball can help.
Regarding the ‘grid’ insert in the shaker - this is present just to prevent ice escaping or blocking the spout during pouring, it serves no mixing aid. If anything it probably reduces the inertia of the contents and makes mixing take longer, so if you don’t have ice, I’d remove it.
I haven’t had any problem mixing it, every single time has been consistently smooth. Put in a bit more effort? If you’re shaking vigorously and counting 10 seconds and there’s a lump then I dunno, maybe you broke a mirror or something.
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