How to Reconstitute

Reconstitution is the process of turning a freeze-dried (“lyophilized”) peptide powder back into a liquid you can actually draw up and inject. The technique below is general across nearly every peptide. For the math behind how much liquid to add and how that determines your dose, see the general dosing guide.

What You’ll Need

The peptide vial (freeze-dried powder)
Bacteriostatic water
Alcohol swabs
A syringe for drawing and injecting the bacteriostatic water

Why Bacteriostatic Water

Bacteriostatic water is sterile water with a small amount of benzyl alcohol added as a preservative. That preservative is what allows a vial to be used more than once over a period of time without bacterial growth taking hold. Plain sterile water has no such preservative: if that’s what’s used instead, the resulting solution should generally be treated as good for a single session rather than stored and reused, since there’s nothing in it inhibiting bacterial growth once the vial has been punctured.

Step by Step

Clean your workspace and wash your hands. Wipe down the surface you’re working on and make sure your hands are clean before handling anything.
Swab both vials. Wipe the rubber stopper of both the peptide vial and the bacteriostatic water vial with a fresh alcohol swab, and let it air dry for a few seconds.
Draw the bacteriostatic water. Using a syringe, draw up the amount of bacteriostatic water you’ve decided on (see the dosing guide for how that amount determines your final concentration).
Inject it into the peptide vial slowly. Insert the needle through the stopper and angle it so the water runs down the inside wall of the glass rather than shooting directly onto the powder. Injecting slowly and against the glass, instead of blasting the powder head-on, reduces the turbulence and foaming that can damage the peptide.
Swirl gently, don’t shake. Rotate the vial gently between your fingers to help the powder dissolve. Shaking introduces excess agitation that can degrade the peptide structure; if it doesn’t fully dissolve right away, let it sit for a few minutes and swirl again rather than shaking it.
Check the result. A properly reconstituted solution should look clear, not cloudy. Cloudiness, discoloration, or visible particles can be a sign something went wrong, either during reconstitution or with the peptide itself, and isn’t a normal outcome to expect.
Label it. Write the reconstitution date on the vial. That date is what you’ll use to track how long it’s been in solution, since a reconstituted vial has a much shorter usable window than the unmixed powder.

After Reconstituting

Once mixed, store the vial according to the general storage guidance in the dosing guide: refrigerated, out of light, and used within its typical window rather than indefinitely. Avoid repeated freeze-thaw cycles, and don’t leave a reconstituted vial at room temperature for extended periods.