This is the part that feels unfamiliar the first time. Here is exactly what you do, from getting your bench ready to storing the finished tablets. Active work time is about 20 minutes — then a few hours of passive drying.

1. Clear and wipe a clean dry bench. Lay baking paper down to catch spills — especially important for the charcoal recipe which stains permanently. Have your scale, bowls, spoon, molds and water within arm's reach before you open any powders.
2. Put your dust mask on now — before you open anything. SCI powder and calcium carbonate are both fine enough to irritate your lungs if you breathe them in while measuring.
3. Turn your oven on to its absolute lowest setting (usually 50–70°C) so it is ready when your molds are filled. Leave the oven door slightly ajar using a wooden spoon handle — this lets moisture escape and speeds up drying considerably.

1. Place your bowl on the scale and press tare (zero) to reset. Add each dry ingredient in order: calcium carbonate first as the largest amount, then baking soda, then xylitol, then xanthan gum. Press tare between each addition so you are measuring each one independently rather than trying to calculate running totals.
2. If you are making the fluoride recipe, weigh the MFP (sodium monofluorophosphate) separately in a tiny cup on your 0.01g jewellery scale. Double check the reading before adding it. This is the only ingredient in any recipe where precision is safety-critical — going over 0.91g risks exceeding the cosmetic fluoride limit.
3. Add the SCI powder last — it is dusty and tends to float, so adding it last means the heavier powders are already settled in the bowl and hold it down.

1. Stir everything together for a full 2 minutes with a dry spoon. Longer than feels necessary — but the xanthan gum especially needs to be completely distributed before any liquid touches it, otherwise it clumps into gel balls rather than binding evenly through the mixture.
2. Add your peppermint essential oil drops directly into the dry powder and stir immediately. The oil will distribute through the mix in about 30 seconds of stirring. You will smell it clearly when it is well mixed. Do not add water yet.
3. The mixture at this stage should be a consistent fine powder, slightly off-white for most recipes. It will smell strongly of mint. This is correct — the smell mellows significantly in the finished tablet.

1. Add just one teaspoon (5ml) of distilled water and stir it through completely before adding more. This is where most first-timers go wrong — pouring in too much water too quickly. The dry powder absorbs water slowly at first and then suddenly feels wet. You cannot un-wet a mix.
2. Keep adding water one teaspoon at a time, stirring thoroughly after each addition. You are aiming for stiff cookie dough — the mixture should hold its shape when you press a pinch between your fingers without crumbling, but should not feel sticky or wet.
3. Stop the moment it holds together. Err dry rather than wet — a slightly dry mix makes a harder tablet. A wet mix makes a soft tablet that takes much longer to dry and may crack during drying. In practice you will use roughly 20–25ml for a 120g batch depending on humidity.
4. If you accidentally add too much water and it becomes sticky, add a small amount of extra calcium carbonate — a teaspoon at a time — and stir through until the consistency comes back.

1. Spoon the paste into a ziplock bag, seal it and push the paste into one corner. Snip a 5mm hole off that corner. You now have a piping bag that gives you far more control than trying to use a spoon into small mold cavities.
2. Pipe the mixture into each mold cavity, slightly overfilling each one. Then use a damp fingertip or the back of a small spoon to press the mixture firmly into the cavity and smooth the flat surface. Press hard — the firmer you compact the mixture, the harder and less fragile the finished tablet will be.
3. Run a dry finger across the flat top of the mold to clear any excess from between cavities so each tablet has a clean defined edge when popped out. Wipe the excess back into your bowl and pipe it into any remaining empty cavities.
4. Each cavity should hold roughly 2g of mixture. For a 120g batch filling 60 cavities this works out about right — do not worry about weighing individual tablets at this stage.

1. Place the filled mold flat on a baking tray and put it in your preheated oven on the lowest setting with the door slightly ajar. Check after 45 minutes.
2. The tablets are ready when the surface feels completely firm and dry to the touch — press gently with a fingertip. It should not dent or leave an impression at all. They should feel like a hard candy.
3. If still soft after an hour, continue in 20-minute increments. Thicker tablets and the charcoal recipe take longest. Very humid days extend drying time — the oven method is more reliable than room temperature drying on humid Melbourne days.
4. Alternatively, leave the molds at room temperature for 24–48 hours if you do not want to use the oven. This works but takes longer and is less consistent.

1. Let the mold cool to room temperature before popping tablets out — hot tablets are slightly soft and can chip at the edges if rushed. Five minutes of cooling is enough.
2. Flex the silicone mold gently from the back to release each tablet. They should pop out cleanly. If any break or crumble, the mixture was slightly too dry — add 1 extra teaspoon of water to your next batch.
3. Transfer immediately to your airtight tin or glass jar and seal. Do not leave tablets exposed to air — they absorb moisture and soften within hours in a humid bathroom. Label clearly with the recipe name and date.
4. Test one tablet from each batch before storing the rest — chew it, brush with it, note the foam level, flavour strength and tablet texture. Write down your observations for the next batch adjustment.