Sawyer Mini Water Filter - Tips And Modifications

this is sean ryu and i'm back with another gear review video um today i'm going to be talking about the sawyer mini but i also want to spend some time talking about some things you can do to make this system work better for you i'm just going to read off a couple of quick specs based off of what is on the packaging filter up to a hundred thousand gallons of fresh water from lakes rivers or streams in addition that exceeds epa recommendations for removal rates removes 99.9999 nine percent of all harmful bacteria including e coli salmonella and bacteria which causes cholera and typhoid removes 99.999 percent of protozoa such as crypto support uh kryptos a purity you know what i mean in kyarya i can never say that right uh kit includes 0.1 micron absolute hollow fill fiber membrane mini filter 116 ounce reusable squeeze pouch cleaning plunger ak syringe filter tip cap drinking straw and instructions um sawyer also claims that this thing weighs two ounces so let me go ahead and get started this is one that's already open this is the one that i normally use backpacking this one right here is just a spare um so a couple of things matter of fact let me go back to the packaging because this will help in terms of explaining how this thing works i think most people that are watching this video as backpackers already know this is just in case someone that isn't familiar with it you have an understanding it can be used as a straw it comes with a straw that attaches to this point right here which is the where you would attach your dirty bag in addition to that this is the tip you can use that to suck straight from so if you're familiar with like a life straw or anything like that it's the same kind of concept this right here is how you actually squeeze the pouch uh you have your bottled water your bag that you're filling up this is the clean part of the tip right here and this is the dirty bag that you actually use to squeeze into the bottle this right here is just showing a representation of using a bottle uh you can actually attach this part which is this part right i'm sorry this part right here to a bottle directly and drink from this part up here you can also hook it up to inline filters um or i'm sorry in-line systems i know that sawyer does sell aftermarket ones i've heard that you can use it with the camelback ones i'm not 100 sure but i think you can use it with the platypus ones as well so let me go ahead and explain a couple of things first of all again this is more so for people that may not be familiar with this i'm not going to go in depth but the way that it works is you attach a dirty bag here you screw it in you take this part and that is where you're going to filter your clean water it's you're just going to roll the bag up at the top squeeze it the water is going to pour out filtered and clean not much to it very simple like i said this thing has let me go back i want to say it's good for up to 100 000 gallons so if you're through hiking or you know you do a lot of backpacking this will serve you for a very long time now a couple of things i do want to talk about uh first off uh most people probably know what one of these are this is just a two liter platypus splatter uh way in other words just another way of carrying your water now the thing i wanted to talk about was is one these bags do not work well with this filter uh i actually tried using the these kind of bags with my old one i have the old sawyer uh squeeze as well which is bigger and weighs a little more i want to say it's three and a half ounces um but it does not work well with this bladder when you actually attach it here it does screw in but it's a little crooked so when you're actually squeezing it you have water that kind of drips out here and if you're pointing this thing down the water drips down here and my concern is with cross contamination so recommendation one don't use these for this filter now recommendation two this is a never avenue one point uh i think it's a one and a half liter um bag i use this as my dirty bag i've got a couple of these that i just keep for backup uh this works great same concept you just screw it in here it threads in see how this is dirty bag i don't mind doing that but i'll show you when you actually thread this in it screws on and it's not crooked so when you're actually squeezing this thing you don't have any problems with water leaking here and coming down so tip number one don't use this use this um tip number two i always carry a smart water bottle or something that has a thread like a coke bottle or something with this kind of thread this thread does work with this filter and i guess so in a pinch if you needed to you could use this to filter your water or you could just sip out of here and drink directly from it i normally always carry a water bottle like this one i use this for my drink mixes and things like that but again if something happened to this bag i could use this bottle as a backup now another thing i wanted to say or another tip tip number three is make one of these they weigh absolutely nothing this is like less than 0.1 ounces all i did was take a water bottle like this from here i just cut it around and then after i did that this is what i ended up with and what i did was i took a lighter and just kind of melted this just so it wasn't sharp and it just kind of got rid of the unevenness well what i use this for is a scoop in other words when you're on low water sources where you're going to have a hard time trying to fill this up dragging it trying to fill it up or scoop things up it just it's not doesn't always work um not to mention the fact that you could jack this bag up so my recommendation is make one of these um you know if you got a water bottle the lighter the bottle you don't need anything thick but that way you can use it you scoop your water up pour it in here scoop it up pour it in there and that's the way it works the other thing that's good about that is it compresses absolutely nothing there you go so it takes up absolutely no space it definitely helps with you know pouring water into your dirty bag on low lying areas now tip number four you can buy one of these off of mini bull designs our website tiny sells these this is the little straw piece right here where is it right here that he's using that comes in this kit all you do is you cut it down you don't need a full part that way you still have a little bit left it's about that long that you can keep and use for your straw to still use with this if you want to now the way that this works it serves for two functions with this i mentioned that it comes with a syringe this piece right here the reason why you have this syringe is is because this will get clogged up and you're gonna use this to back flush this now the reason why i prefer this one is this is bigger two this is lighter and i want to give you an idea of how much lighter i want to say that that's a range is somewhere around an ounce maybe a little closer to an ounce and a half this or my oh my scale comes in at 0.59 ounces now you know some people may say i don't really need it but you know what if you go with this and you do long distance backpacking you are going to have problems with your filter clogging it's better to take something to not have some nothing so instead of having a syringe i'm taking this and the way that this works is this tip right here you attach this to the tip and you squeeze you just push it on and what it does is it connects to it and it looks like this and what you're going to do is you're going to take your clean bag which is this platypus platter or whatever it is that you use as your clean for your clean water this has a little gasket so it does have a good seal all you're going to do is take this and hook it up to here and you're going to work this thing in reverse in other words you're going to squeeze this the force water through here which is going to force your dirty water out that way it works very well i can say from my own experience now the other positive to this is because one of the things as an ultralight backpacker is i have a firm belief and only carrying things with multi-use is not only does it work to back flush this but if you've ever tried to fill a platypus bladder with one of these it's you know this thing has a tendency to want to fall over all the time when you first start filling it up especially if you're scooping water into it this thing's just gonna keep plopping over sometimes i mean you can try and straddle it or whatever works best for you but what i found is is that this works a lot better in other words you attach it to here and i'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to get this thing attached it takes a little bit of work to work it in then you're going to attach your dirty bag on this end and as you're squeezing your water your clean or dirty water from this bag down into here again i didn't put it on tight the way that i should have it'll filter into here and you don't have to worry about holding this thing you just squeeze it and this bag is going to fill up so you know i highly recommend this and the reason why again is is because of the fact that you know you can use this to for this when it gets dirty to flush your filter but the second piece of that is is that it can also serve so when you're filling this thing up you don't have to worry about this thing falling over if it falls over you know what you're not losing your water you're not having to start back over and fill this thing back up um works great um one of the things that i love about using this filter now even more is having the convenience of having this and not having to carry the plunger and again not worrying about the bag falling over and having a way of attaching it now one other thing that i'll also talk about this has nothing to do with the filter uh this is just something that i actually like um you know you can buy this with a water bottle uh you can buy them on amazon for nothing but i like these for my plasma splatters and the reason why and because whenever you're trying to do camp chores whether it's to fill up your cook pot to um you know cook dinner or whatever it is that you're doing this just makes it easier so you have more control of the flow rate of the water that comes out yeah it does have a little bit of weight to it but you know what for the convenience i'll take it all day i know sometimes when i used to cook without these um i pour my water out and i have a tendency to pour a little more than i wanted to out not just because these things once you get halfway down you know they i'll show you you know they have a tendency to kind of flop around so you know you got half of this thing full you know this thing's flopping around this just makes it so you have a little more control um other than that i hope you like the tips if anybody else has any recommendations or tips or things that you personally do that make using this filter even better or improves on the you know way that it was designed you know please feel free to share a comment below um this is sean for you like sub hit the subscribe

Channel: Shonryu

Views: 128,625

Keywords: sawyer, sawyer mini, evernew bladder, water filter, water filtration, sawyer squeeze, Appalachian Trail, Thru hike gear, AT, Continental divide trail, CDT, PCT, Pacific Crest Trail, JMT, John Muir Trail, ultra light, ultralight, ultralite, ultra lite, backpacking, hiking, thru hike, survival, prepping, BOB, Bug Out Bag, camping, bushcraft, super ultra light, super ultralight, super ultra lite, super ultralite, adventure, go bag, sawyer mini tips, sawyer mini mods, SUL, UL, SUL backpacking

Id: Ap6sDGA8X6k

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 07 2014