Backpacker's guide to the SAWYER SQUEEZE

hey everyone in this video we're going to take an in-depth look at the sawyer squeeze let's go [Music] the sawyer squeeze is one of the most popular water filtration systems found on the trail and if you are thinking about buying one or you already own one and you want to learn more about it you're in the right spot what we're going to cover in this video includes the specs of the sawyer squeeze how to use it how to clean it and some common problems and how you can work around them just right out of the gate i want to get this out there i'm not sponsored by sawyer i have no relationship with sawyer they have no idea i'm creating this video this is just based off of my own personal experience i'm trying to help you guys out there so if you're thinking about getting a squeeze or you already have one you want to learn more about how to use it and clean it and whatnot that you can rely on folks who have field tested it like me extensively to share their experience let's start with the specs the solar squeeze is about five inches long and a little bit less than two inches in diameter at its widest point let's throw these on the scale and see what we have for weight when completely dry it weighs in at 64.81 grams or 2.29 ounces when it's wet which is the condition you'll be carrying it in most of the time when you're on the trail because i'm assuming you'll be using it quite often 87.67 grams or 3.09 ounces for filtering capabilities it's rated at 0.1 microns which means it will filter out 99.9999 percent of all bacteria it also removes 99.9999 of all protozoa like giardia and cryptosporidium that's what it filters out but what it doesn't filter out are chemicals so if you're in an area where there might be pesticides on farm fields running into a stream it's not going to filter that out and it also doesn't filter out discolored or stained water so if you've got iced tea type water coming in that's what you're going to get going out it won't have any chunks in it of course but it still is going to be stained let's talk about how long it lasts when i bought my first sawyer squeeze there was something on the package about 1 million gallons of water it was supposed to filter now that's a lot of water my experience in the field has been when you first buy the squeeze the flow rate is pretty solid and then over time it just kind of slowly degrades and you can get it back a little bit each time you flush it out but it never seems to get back to that brand new flow rate sawyer does provide a lifetime warranty on the squeeze which is a good thing if it ever breaks there are a number of things that the soya squeeze comes with including a syringe some plastic bags a hose some caps that go on it and a mesh bag now i threw away everything except for the syringe which you need to have to back flush it and the mesh bag which i don't use for the squeeze but i do put my toiletries in there there are two reasons i don't use the plastic bags that come with a sawyer squeeze first is i just find it easier to get water out of a stream or a lake using a plastic water bottle those bags just are more difficult to get water into in my opinion second the bags have a bit of a reputation among backpackers for getting leaks and i just don't want to deal with leaks when i'm out of the trail if you're just going to use it to filter water from a dirty water bottle into a clean water bottle in my opinion the only thing you need is the sawyer squeeze itself and the syringe for back flushing it although the main focus of this video is the full-size sauger squeeze i did want to mention that sawyer does have two other models that they produce they have a sawyer mini and a sawyer micro these are a little bit smaller than the full size sawyer squeeze a little bit lighter but from people who have used them i've heard the flow rate is not quite as good still good but not as good as the full size sawyer squeeze if you're planning on doing a lot of inline gravity fed type filtering then maybe one of those might be something you would consider i personally only use the sawyer squeeze for squeezing water through into my main water bottles so i don't care about the very very slight difference in weight i just want the maximum flow throughput that i can get to save time and energy while i'm filtering water let's talk about how to use the sawyer squeeze like i said i don't use the plastic bags that it came with what i use is just a standard one liter bottle where the threads fit onto the sawyer squeeze i'm using aquafina that's a brand sold here in the midwest and it works great those bottles are practically indestructible and even if i did break one well for another 99 cents i'll have one of the next town i come to so you start by filling up your plastic water bottle in a creek on this particular day it was 26 degrees out so man my hands were cold then you thread the spoiler squeeze onto the end of your source bottle and what i like to do is in case any dirt debris or germs or whatever got into the end of that squeeze since i last use it i will squeeze out the first little bit of water onto the ground before pouring it into my clean water bottle and i'll hold it at about a 30 degree angle when i'm squeezing it into my target water bottle the reason i do that is because there may be contaminated water on the outside of the source water bottle or that may have dripped down onto the squeeze i don't want that running in and dripping into my clean water it's important to keep your target or clean water bottle on a level surface i can't tell you how many times i've started to squeeze the water in there and then it tips over because i've got it sitting on a rock or something so save yourself a little bit of frustration make sure it's on a level surface and you'll be good to go from there it's just a matter of squeezing the water out through the squeeze and into your target water bottle and you can use whatever method works best you can use the two-handed squeeze or sometimes i'll squeeze my palms together and squeeze it that way you can even force it together with your knees too if you're looking for a little extra oomph one of the things some people complain about is well after you squeeze it for a while then you have to loosen it up to let more air in because you can't squeeze any more through well that's fine all you do is you just unscrew it let air back into the water bottle and then tighten it again it literally takes like two seconds and after you've squeezed a bunch of water through this over the years it just becomes so second nature you don't even think about it one thing i like to do is screw the sawyer squeeze on one more time and then with an empty source water bottle i'll squish out any additional water that was left in the squeeze that way i don't have any of that other water that's still left in the squeeze leaking out into my pack over time on to cleaning people have asked how often do you need to clean your sawyer squeeze that really depends on the quality of the water where you're hiking when my son and i did the john muir trail back in 2018 we were out on the trail for 16 days and we never back flushed our sawyer squeezes once the reason is the water is crystal clear up there very very clean and there's really not much to get clogged in your filter however we've gone in other places where the water is somewhat silty or dirty and every two three days you've got to back flush it otherwise the flow rate gets to be really really bad so the bottom line it just really depends on the quality of the water where you're hiking the cleaner the water the less often you have to back flush it i do back flush it though after every single trip that i go on as soon as i get home that's one of the first things i do is back flush the squeeze get it all cleaned out sanitize it and then set it out to dry the process for back flushing is fairly simple first of all take some clean water and put it into a glass and then you draw water into the syringe the sawyer squeeze on the front part of it it should be fairly obvious where the nozzle is you connect the syringe to the nozzle and then you force the water in there pretty much as hard as you can and you want to do this about a half a dozen times until the water is coming out clear now i will take the water that's coming out the other end and put it into a clear glass so i can see how dirty or clean it is once that water is coming out clean you might not be done yet one way to find out is to tap the sawyer squeeze on your sink pretty firmly on the top on the bottom on the sides rotate it around until you've tapped all over the place then flush the water through there again you'd be surprised at how much additional junk comes out of the sawyer squeeze once you've tapped it a bunch of times and it's not coming out dirty anymore then you know you're clean an alternate way to back flush your sawyer squeeze is to buy this coupling that you can get on amazon for about three bucks and you screw it on to the solder squeeze and then screw your clean water bottle onto it and you can squeeze clean water through it similar to how you would force water through it with a syringe the downside of this is i really don't think you get nearly the pressure that you get with the syringe so i'm going to continue using the syringe out on the trail however this is an option for you if you're interested in saving just a little bit of weight and bulk after you get back from a trip and you're done back flushing your soya squeeze i do think it's a good idea to sanitize it as well a time that i didn't sanitize it i let it sit for a couple of months and then use it again and the water coming out of it tasted very mildewy so i suspect that it got moldy on the inside and i couldn't get that funky taste out of it and had to stop using it sanitizing it is pretty easy you start with one quart of water and you put one capful of bleach in it just use standard unscented bleach you don't want any fragrances in there then you stir it up then you draw the bleach water into the syringe and force it through the soil squeeze just like if you were back flushing it i like to let it sit for about 15 minutes and then i will take an empty water bottle and squeeze air through it to blow all the excess bleach water out of it then i just set it on a windowsill and let it dry for a couple of days before putting it away for storage so let's talk about some of the common complaints issues or problems people have with the sawyer squeeze and i'll talk about some things you can do to help mitigate or prevent those things from happening to you the first one is that some people say the o-ring falls off very easily and can get lost if that o-ring is not in there your squeeze is useless you just won't have the ability to squeeze any water through without it just spraying all over the place i have not had any issues with the o-ring coming out but it's easy to lose because it's so small and once you lose it you're in big trouble so my solution to this is just buy on amazon a six-pack of those things a six-pack for three bucks that's 50 cents a piece and take them with you i say take two of them with you that way if you lose one you have an extra and if somebody else you know loses one you can give them your spare without giving them your only spare i weighed one of them and it weighs seriously less than a gram so for two grams you can take two of the o-rings with you the next issue is that you can't let it freeze if your soil squeeze is wet and it freezes it will crack the membranes inside and it will be useless and you can't use it what i do when i'm camping and it's going to be below freezing overnight is i will put the squeeze in a little plastic baggie and i'll put it in the foot box of my quilt and the quilt i use is the enlightened equipment enigma and it's got a pretty big foot box i've never had it fall out of there it's in there and it's fine and it stays nice and warm another thing you can do that i've tried in the past is i'll take that same baggie and if i'm wearing like running tights because it's cold at night i will just slide it in the side now if you sleep on your side that's probably not going to work but that is another way other people have put them in shirt pockets other people i've heard have put on put them in their sleeves whatever just make sure it doesn't freeze by keeping it close to your body heat inside your tent the last thing is so many people use these and you might be at a camp with eight or ten people and six of them are going to have a sawyer squeeze and what i like to do is write my name on it so that way if i get it mixed up or there's no question that my squeeze is mine you may laugh and say oh that's pretty paranoid but it's just one way to make sure that something as important as your water filtration system is uncompromised another reason i think it's important to keep your name on your squeeze is that if you happen to lose it it falls out of your pack or you leave it when you're getting water at a break which does happen it's pretty likely you're gonna get it back because most of the places you're hiking your people around you are gonna know who you are and if they see a name on a sawyer squeeze and they know you're five miles ahead of them they're just gonna pick it up and bring it with to the next shelter and you'll get it back if you don't have your name on it and you lose it you're probably not gonna ever see that again so let's just do an overall summary i've been using a sawyer squeeze for many years and i absolutely love it it's convenient lightweight inexpensive it does the job great i really like the product talking about some of the downsides the flow rate does decrease over time but i've not heard of any filter where the flow rate doesn't decrease over time so that's nothing unique to the sawyer squeeze and if you keep it flushed properly you can extend the life of it quite a bit in my opinion another issue is that the o-ring might fall out from time to time but that doesn't really happen to me and even if it did i keep spares with me just in case so i recommend you do the same thing lastly those bags are known to fail but just toss those i just use a plastic bottle they're basically indestructible i've never had a plastic bottle break or fail and even if it did for 99 cents i'll have another one at the next town so i think you probably figured it out by now but in conclusion i do recommend this fire squeeze i do think it's a great product i've had a lot of success with it and i plan to keep using it for years and years to come as always if you found any value in this video please hit that like button and if you're into outdoor hiking backpacking kind of stuff hopefully you'll subscribe to my channel thanks and we'll see you on the trail

Channel: Jon Allen Outside

Views: 12,809

Keywords: backpacking, hiking, water filtration

Id: ktIyMSdHXGw

Length: 14min 42sec (882 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2020