Gear Review Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter

Deadeye008

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With all of the talk about water filters I thought I would get my Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter out and test it. I bought this filter about a month ago or so and have not had a chance to use it in the field. The kit comes with the water filter, a 64 oz bag, a 32 oz bag, a 16 oz bag, and a syringe to back flush the filter. The filter comes with Sawyer's 1 million gallon gaurantee. I tried filtering 1 liter of tap water and it took about 40 seconds with moderate squeezing pressure. See video below. The filter can be used with the included bags or it can be used with any plastic bottle that has a standard water bottle opening on it. I tried it out with three different bottles I had in the house and it fit on all three. Field weight of the filter is a light 3 oz which includes the filter and one of the bags. Here are some pics and the video.


IMG_2388.jpg

On a 2 liter bottle
IMG_2389.jpg

On a SmartWater bottle
IMG_2390.jpg

On a generic water bottle
IMG_2391.jpg
 
The filter works fine ... the squeeze bag (32 oz size) is fragile. I have read reports in other forums about the bag coming apart at the seams, probably from squeezing "too hard". My squeeze bag didn't fail like that, but it developed a couple small holes where the plastic spout on the inside rubbed against the inside of the bag.
 

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I have a Sawyer Mini and use a 64 oz squeeze bag. Takes about 2 minutes to empty the bag with moderate pressure and rolling the bag from the top down.

My buddy brought a Sawyer squeeze on our recent Glacier bakcpacking trip. It's slightly heavier (< 0.5 oz) heavier than the mini. The annoying thing about the squeeze is that the white top popped off constantly when filtering from a bag into another container. I'll stick to my Mini.
 
I have a Sawyer Mini and use a 64 oz squeeze bag. Takes about 2 minutes to empty the bag with moderate pressure and rolling the bag from the top down.

My buddy brought a Sawyer squeeze on our recent Glacier bakcpacking trip. It's slightly heavier (< 0.5 oz) heavier than the mini. The annoying thing about the squeeze is that the white top popped off constantly when filtering from a bag into another container. I'll stick to my Mini.
There's also now a Micro, which has a better flow rate than the mini and is, well, micro.
 
The Sawyer filters are great but the bags are useless.....

I use this bag and it is truly perfect:

Cnoc

You can easily turn this into a gravity feed system with this bag as well........
 
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I used one of these on 2-3 trips a couple years ago but got tired of the process pretty quickly. the nail in the coffin was a mosquito-heavy trip where needing both hands on the sqeeze bag was just no fun.

since then, for all desert trips where you filter more water less often, I've been using a Platypus Gravityworks -- it's just super nice to fill up the 4L bag and do other stuff for 5-10 minutes while the filter does its thing.
 
I use a Sawyer Micro with a Evernew 2L bag on each end, the top end has some string to hang from a branch. Works great as a gravity filter and not super heavy. I hate squeezing, but with this setup, I almost never have to.
 
I have a Sawyer Mini for years right now and last summer my first squeeze bag was falling apart after 7 years of heavy use. I use the Mini all year long, mostly on long day hikes so I don't have to carry a lot of water. With that amount of use I had, I think the squeeze bottle failed because of that.
I'm still more than happy with my Sawyer Mini after all these years
 
Highly recommend the Evernew bags to go with Sawyer filters. They're much better than the supplied ones, though they'll eventually wear out-usually the welded seam right around the neck, where I suppose the most pressure is.
I'm very heavy handed, and still get years of use from one bag.

I made this in 2015, on my last day(after 2 weeks of dayhiking and 3-4 day mini trips) in the Sierras, and don't recall if I ever backflushed. I mostly use the Micro, because its more compact, but think the Squeeze lasts longer, and doesn't slow down as much over time. Still have the same Squeeze as in the video, but had previously discarded a couple that had been frozen. <<Presumably. I don't really know how to tell if they've been ruined, but didn't want to push my luck after forgetting about them for a while in single digit temps. Dang polar vortexes.

Yeah, I'm that goofy...
 
+1 for the CNOC Vecto bags to pair with the Sawyer. I even tested out its strength claims by standing on mine and squishing it back and forth under my feet, and impressively, it held up to my abuse just fine. I had some Evernew bags too, but one of them popped a leak in it some how. This year I think I'm going to give my Katadyn BeFree another chance on a few different trips though after seeing some other folks tips and hacks for it. I just didn't like the vinyl taste my bag was giving the water when I first got it to try out a couple years ago.
 
The filter works fine ... the squeeze bag (32 oz size) is fragile. I have read reports in other forums about the bag coming apart at the seams, probably from squeezing "too hard". My squeeze bag didn't fail like that, but it developed a couple small holes where the plastic spout on the inside rubbed against the inside of the bag.
Yes, I bought a set of the 32 oz replacements and killed each one after separate backpacks. Glad, others have found alternatives and are sharing those.
 
The Evernew threads fit perfectly as well. That was the biggest selling point for me. I was so sick of my platypus bag leaking around the edges and having the potential to contaminate my filtered water.

Then I eventually just got sick of the mini, saw @Wanderlust073's Katadyn BeFree gravity setup on a trip last year, and went and bought one immediately after. Hard to beat for $60. Fantastic flow rate.
 
I love my Katadyn BeFree gravity filter. The bag is definitely "fragile" but with some care has lasted a couple of years now. I don't squeeze the bag, just hang it while doing other chores and it quickly drains.
 
I have read many reviews and research on Sawyer filters and I have no regrets buying it. A great filter, convenient to take away, I have been using it for almost a year and the filter is still great.
 
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I gave up on the Sawyer filters. The actual filters are fin but the bags had me ready to pull my hair out. I eventually settled on a Katadyn Befree. Haven't had any problems with the bag breaking on me.
 
The Sawyer filters are great but the bags are useless.....

I use this bag and it is truly perfect:

Cnoc

You can easily turn this into a gravity feed system with this bag as well........

I use this same bag, and while the bag is nice, I can't ever get it to seal tightly on the filter threads. Does yours do this?
 
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