Chad, I do know that acidic environments increase the conversion of creatine to creatinine, but I didn't know to what degree (especially when considering how strong that acid was). So I did a simple search, "Creatine citric acid" in google. I found this:
http://www.aapspharmscitech.org/view.asp?art=pt040225&pdf=yes
You don't have to read this, but I learned some intersting things here. The bottom line is that although an acidic environment will expedite the conversion, it won't do nearly as much as simple temperature (make sense, since at higher temperatures hydrogen bonds are less stable).
They tested the degradation, dissolution, and solubiliity of creatine, creatine monohydrate, and di-creatine in the study (the dicreatine formulas were supplied by FSI Labs in their product that included citric acid in the flavoring, BTW). If you scroll to results and discussion, you may click on the hyperlink titled "Table 1" to see the degradation scores.
Bottom line is that I think most guys are unnecessarily freaked out by the conversion process. I think one poster said, "You have to drink it in 10 minutes."
No. For all three, after 1 whole day, only about 1% had converted to creatinine. About 2% after two days. The solutions were stable to a high degree (<90%) even at room temperature for six days. So don't worry at all about combining gatorade.
A more important caveat is solubility problems. This was the first time I'd ever seen saturated solubility of creatine monohydrate directly compared to di-creatine. CM has a poor solubility; however, the researchers noted this could be countered by not overloading a liquid solution with the monohydrate.
Basic Guideline: Combine 5g creatine monohydrate with at least 16oz. water No less water.
