Detailed Filter Comparison | BeFree vs Versa Flow vs Aquamira vs Sawyer Squeeze, Mini, Micro

so as you may know there are a lot of options out there for backpacking water filters and many of them are very very similar so in this video I'm planning to do a detailed comparison of some of the most popular water filters that you'll see backpackers using these days and hopefully that will help you determine which one is right for you now in this video I'm gonna go over all of the different specs the features I'm gonna cover the pricing and I'll do multiple flow rate tests but I'm not gonna go into a long-term use review of any of these filters they're already a ton of reviews of each individual filter on YouTube if you're looking for long-term use review this is just going to be to compare the differences between them so with that said here are all of the filters that I'll be taking a look at you'll notice that they're all the gravity squeeze style filters so no pump style filters in this video but starting off we have the katadyn be free the sawyer mini the sawyer squeeze the sawyer micro and then we have the backcountry filter from aqua mera this is just the filter cartridge this is the housing casing that it goes in and then finally we have the Versa flow from hydro blue and all of these filters are brand new I wanted this comparison to be as close to apples-to-apples as possible so I purchased all brand new filters specifically for this comparison also because I want this to be a detailed video it's probably going to be a long ish video so I'll put timestamps in the description below if you want to skip around to just the sections that you're interested in so let's jump right into the comparison first off every one of these filters is listed as either meeting or exceeding EPA water filtration standards now from what I could find the Aqua mera backcountry filter is the only one that's certified in meeting those standards as well as a couple of other standards I believe the Sawyer filters I didn't see any official certifications but they at least have downloads on their website where you can download reports from some of the independent testing that has been done on these filters but the katadyn and the versa flow I wasn't able to find any documentation that backs up the claims that they make about these filters if you know of any let me know but I couldn't find anything next all of these for altars are hollow fiber water filters and they're all rated at 0.1 microns except for the aqua mira filter once again it's the outlier of the group but when I check their website they actually don't have a micron rating listed for any of their water filters and they essentially just said the micron rating is irrelevant because we're certified so there's that now just in case you're not really certain what the micron rating is or why it's important basically the fibers on all of these filters have really tiny holes in them and they're made to act essentially like a microscopic version of the strainer in your kitchen so it's made to allow the water to pass through but not your spaghetti noodles or in this case the bacteria so a micron is just a unit of length and one micron is equal to one one thousandth of a millimeter so when they say 0.1 microns for these filters what they're saying is that the holes in those fibers are one ten thousandth of a millimeter in diameter now the reason that's important is that most bacteria and protozoa are in the range of one to ten microns so by having a hole that's only 0.1 microns in diameter theoretically you're blocking all of that bacteria and protozoa you're trapping it in the filter and not allowing it to pass through into your drinking water so that ties into the removal percentage which you should now be seeing for each filter on the screen but it is worth noting that some of those percentages I don't know I found some mixed information like the number on the box might differ slightly from the manufacturers website I honestly can't remember which filters that applied to but essentially I just they're all so close I wouldn't recommend making a decision based purely on that percentage so now let's talk about how long these filters are expected to last you and the shortest of all six is the backcountry filter from Aqua Mara now this is just the standard backcountry filter but it's only rated at 100 gallons next is the katadyn be free which is rated at up to 264 gallons and then somehow we have this huge magical jump from 264 up to 100,000 gallons and the sawyer mini the sawyer micro and the versa flow are all rated at 100,000 gallons finally the top of the list is the Sawyer squeeze which used to be rated at 1 million gallons and now they just say there's a lifetime guarantee so essentially you should never ever burn through one of these now getting into the size comparison starting with the width the largest diameter is the katadyn be free at 1.9 5 inches and the smallest diameter is the saw your mini at one point three eight inches lengthwise the longest is the Sawyer squeeze at five point seven five inches and the shortest is the katadyn at four point one three inches now moving into the different weights starting with the heaviest we have the Sawyer squeeze at 2.45 ounces next is the Aqua air backcountry with that required case and that is two point one six ounces next we have the Versa flow which weighs in at 1.9 two ounces then the Sawyer micro which weighs one point eight three ounces after that is the Sawyer mini at one point three four ounces and finally the lightest we have the katadyn be free at 1.25 ounces okay now let's take a closer look at each individual filter I'll just kind of talk about the style the connection points that it has some of the features starting with the bfree the top of this filter it has a thread basically just like a water bottle would so you can use any type of water bottle cap with this and it comes already with this flip top sport style cap so that you can drink directly out of this and then on the backside bottom side whatever you want to call that this is kind of what really sets this filter apart from the rest of these and that's that this has a 42 millimeter thread so this is too large to fit on a standard smart water bottle unless you 3d print an adapter for it but it's 42 millimeters so most of the time you're probably going to buy it with one of these collapsible bags from katadyn this is the one liter they also have a zero point six liter but essentially you know the filter just threads directly onto the so you can just collect your dirty water in this bottle drink directly out of it to the other big factor about that is that all of these fibers are basically just exposed on the backside of this so to clean it instead of back flushing they say that all you have to do is just stick this end in some water and shake it and that will supposedly break loose all of the sediment and clean it and then that should restore your flow rate so definitely easy to clean and you don't have to carry any additional equipment with you to be able to clean it like this all your filters which I'm about to get into but they come with this little syringe where you have to suck some clean water up into this and then and inject that is that what you would say your you force water back through the filter to back flush these so with that let's actually talk about the sawyer filters starting with the sawyer mini this filter has a connection point on both ends where you can connect a hose so if you want to use it as an in-line filter you can do that or if you just want to connect a hose to gravity feed like out of a hydration bladder you can do that as well there are no threads on this end on the the output but on the input end it's a 28 millimeter thread so this will screw directly on to the smart water bottles or all of the sawyer filters come with some type of squeeze bag that's that same filter thread so you can collect your dirty water in that screw the filter on and then squeeze the water through and I already mentioned the plunger that you use for back flushing all the filters from sawyer come with this plunger and then this also has an o-ring in the backside to make sure that there's a nice seal to make sure that none of your dirty water leaks out around the the filter threads so that's the sawyer mini next up is the sawyer squeeze the end has this same type of thread that the b-free does so that you can use water bottle caps and it comes with also a sport style cap but it's one of these that you have to pop out and back in it's not a flip top which I kind of prefer the flip top that comes on the the be free but you know it's really easy to swap those out but the cool thing about this is that it's not just that thread on the top it does have a connection port here that you can use if you want to add a hose to this end now on the back side it's similar to this when I say backside this is the input side it's similar to the sawyer mini in that it has a 28 millimeter thread along with the same washer the the rubber o-ring on the inside the difference with this is that it does not have already a connection port here for a hose for gravity filtering for in-line filtering now I don't know if they all do but the particular kit that I ordered came with these threaded adapters that will accept a water hose here and then that just screws directly into the water filter so you can use it with anything that has a hose or you can screw it directly to a water bottle and again it comes with the squeeze bags so next is the sawyer micro and i'm really interested to test this out because it has some pretty mixed reviews online so it'll be interesting once we get to the the flow rate test to see how this works out but essentially this filter is going to be like a hybrid between the sawyer mini and the sawyer squeeze on the output side it has that same exact connector for a hose on the inside and the threads for a water bottle cap just like the sawyer squeeze comes with the same sport cap already attached and then on the back end it's actually more like the input side of the sawyer mini so it has the threads for a water bottle or a squeeze bag but then it also has the hose connector and once again it has that same oring seal on the inside so next is the aqua mirror filter this one's very different from all of the other filters because it's the only cartridge style filter but essentially you just have the housing and the filter cartridge there's a rubber o-ring around this end of the cartridge just to make sure that it seats well and seals off well with the output end of the housing then you can screw the other piece on and the other big difference between this and the other filters is that there are no threaded ends on this filter housing so without using some additional adapters you cannot connect this to the squeezed bags or a standard smart water bottle it's actually made because it has the Quick Connect ends on it it's made to be used with a hydration bladder so you would use it as an inline filter and that quick connect just snaps directly into the hydration bladder you would connect your hose to the other end and you're good to go good and bad because you're limited to the Quick Connect but I really like the simplicity of the Quick Connect instead of threading things on and off so pros and cons there the other big difference between this filter and the rest of these is that because of the design of this filter for whatever reason I don't really know why but this filter can not be back flushed or cleaned so essentially once you run through the the life expectancy of this filter and it begins to slow down the flow rate then you're done you just have to get another cartridge and finally we have the Versa flow from Hydra blue now this filter is very often compared to the sawyer mini because as you can see they are very similar in shape and style the versa flow is just slightly larger but the other differences are that the versa flow has the same type of connection on both ends so at the inlet and the outlet you have a 28 millimeter thread for screwing on two water bottles in addition to the thread on both ends you also have these hose connectors which on both ends are protected by this little rubber cap so you can connect two hose on both ends and use this just like an inline filter the other difference with this filter unlike any of these except for the b-free is that you have a little window on the side here so you can actually see the fibers on the inside of the filter also the versa flow at least the one that I ordered it comes with nothing but the filter so no squeeze bags no plunger for back flushing no anything but the filter itself that is all of the filters now let's talk about pricing okay I've rearranged these kind of an order of most expensive to least expensive and of course prices fluctuate often so this is just as of the time of recording this video the most expensive is the katadyn be free because it's $45 but that's with the one liter collapsible bottle so if se you already have a bottle that will work with this then you can get just the filter itself for $25 which would actually put it right here in the lineup so with the collapsible wobble $45 next is the aqua mera filter if you get the frontier max which is the the housing here that comes with that back country plus the 1000 gallon filter it's $40 this is just the back country replacement filter cartridge and this is $20 next is the Sawyer squeeze they seem to sell this in multiple different kits but the one that I got which seems to be kind of the the standard price for these is $36 next is the Sawyer micro which comes in at $29 then we have the Versa flow from hydro blue this is $22 and then last but not least well least expensive is the Sawyer mini which comes in at just $20 okay with all of those differences covered we can finally move on to the flow rate tests and I'm going to do that a couple of different ways first I'm going to do a standard gravity filter test so I'm going to filter three liters of standard tap water through each filter and just see what my flow rate is then I'm gonna do a squeeze test which will actually just be a pressurized water test with each filter and see how much more of a flow rate we get that way and then I'm really interested to know how easily these filters begin to clog up so I'm going to take all of these out to a local lake or a river or some place with some questionable water and I'm gonna filter a lot of dirty water through these and I'm going to come back and do those same standard tap water flow rates and see how much of a lost in flow rate there is after having filtered some dirty water through these now for the pressurized test I really wanted to make sure that I was using the same pressure with each one of these and I wanted that pressure to be constant so I decided that there's just no way that I could manually squeeze a bag for each individual filter so I have built this lovely high-tech contraption here that basically would just allow me to connect a water filter down here put in three litres of water I can monitor the pressure with a pressure gauge and try to maintain that same constant pressure using this pressure bulb so that's how I'm going to do the squeeze test just to make sure that you know it's consistent with all of these with all of that said let's test it out now as a quick note because all of these filters were brand new and completely dry I did run a little bit of tap water through each one just to saturate the fibers before beginning the flow rate test so that that initial soaking of the fibers would not be a factor in the flow rate all right well since the last clips that you've seen it's about a week later now because work but I'm here at the lake and I'm gonna go filter some dirty water through these filters and see how easily they clog up so I collected water from the lake and I ended up filtering two gallons or about seven and a half litres of dirty water through each filter after that I came back home and I once again did a pressurize test with clean water on each filter then I back flushed or cleaned the filters and I repeated the pressurized test once again to see how much of the flow rate was restored so finally after a couple days of testing collecting data putting it all in a spreadsheet here are the results this first graph shows the first two tests that I did so that was the pressurized test and the gravity filtering test both with clean water through brand-new filters and you can see the flow rates there in case you are curious the pressure test average 2.7 times faster flow rate than the gravity filtering next this graph shows the results from the three pressurized flow rate tests for each filter so on the Left what you can see there's the initial test that was with clean water through brand-new filters so that was kind of my control flow rate then in the middle where it says dirty water that's the flow rate after having filtered two gallons of dirty water through each filter and then on the right that is the flow rate after back flushing or cleaning the filters and you'll notice that because the Aqua Mara cannot be cleaned or back flushed there's no third data point for that filter now after running the dirty water through these filters I only did pressurized tests I did not do any more gravity testing but I used the percent difference between the two initial tests the gravity test and the pressurized tests to give a ballpark estimate of the flow rates you could expect to see after the filters were dirty and after they were back flushed now as for the water coming out of these filters you would probably have to have the water inspected in a lab to really notice any difference between them the water was perfectly clear from all the filters and I didn't notice any strange taste with any of them so in that regard I would consider them all pretty equivalent so from all of that testing the katadyn bfree was the lightest of the bunch it consistently had the best flow rate and you can clean it on the trail without having to carry any additional gear so I have a feeling that's the one that I'm gonna be sticking with at least for the time being but leave me a comment below and let me know which filter you would pick if you found any benefit from my nerdy water filter comparison give the video a thumbs up and I will see you guys in the next one

Channel: GearTest Outdoors

Views: 179,588

Keywords: Gear, Test, GearTest, Geartest.tv, Backpacking, Hiking, Hunting, Camping, Outdoor, Canoe, Kayak, Light, Ultralight, DIY, Weight, Camp, Low, AT, Trail, Overnight, Weekend, How, Review, Wilderness, 4K, Survival, Backpack, ultra, UL, budget, cheap, thru, hike, thruhike, Beginner, Water, Filter, Comparison, Katadyn, BeFree, Be, Free, Sawyer, Squeeze, Mini, Micro, Hydroblu, Versa, Flow, Aquamira, Backcountry, VersaFlow, Rate, Detailed, Scientific, Best, Filters, Filtration, System, Hollow, Fiber, Micron, portable, Collapsible, Hydrapak, Prepper, Prepping, Bushcraft

Id: dEZWre0YKjg

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020