Sawyer Squeeze/Mini Usage

[soumodeler]

Who uses the Sawyer Squeeze or Mini filter using the water bags vs. inline on a water bladder?

I currently use a Squeeze inline on a Platypus 3L bladder but keep having issues with the inline adapters not tightening and thus leaking. Beginning to wonder if I warped it somehow.

Ordered a Mini and another Platypus hose to cut it inline and quickly figured out that I will not be able to get the Mini back out of the hose to backflush it as the hose fits extremely tightly over the ends.

Anyone else have these problems?

[JJMorse]

Haven't tried inline - but my favorite way to use the Sawyer Mini is to have a 2L bladder I drink from and a 2L evernew bag as a dirty water bag. I screw the mini onto the filter, take the bite valve off my Platy (Easy with the "Hoser" model) and stick the other side of the mini into the hose. I then put the evernew down on a sit pad and lightly sit on it until the water has all transferred. Put everything back together and hike on!

I also keep a 700mL smartwater bottle that stays a clean water bottle. I use that with the sports cap to backflush.

The major advantages to this system are not having to take your bladder out of the pack to fill it, having full flow from your bladder, and as you mentioned, not having to do any special disassembly to backflush your Sawyer.

[JJMorse]

I screw the mini onto the Evernew*

[HeartFire]

I use it in line and haven't had a problem getting it on and off - it's a tug to remove it, but not impossible.

[Odd Man Out]

Last time I had two 900 mL Evernew bags that I would fill using the 16 oz bag that came with the mini for dirty water. I also had two 40 oz Gatorade bottles to drink from. Have not used it inline. Next time I will ditch the 16 oz bag as it is too small (had to fill it too many times to get all the water I needed). I'd like to be able to filter 2 L at a time, but I'd rather have two 900 mL bags so I have the second as a backup if the first one breaks. I have an adaptor to screw a bag on the clean side of the Mini, connected with a 1" piece cut off of the drinking tube that came with the filter. But I found it problematic to screw a bag on both sides so I might rethink that plan. The adaptor did make it possible to get a tight seal between the syringe and the filter for backflushing which is nice. Without that, I can't get a good backflush.

[HooKooDooKu]

I use a 2L Evernew for dirty water that I screw onto the back.
I then use a 2L Platypus Hoser for the clean water and do a gravity system. That way the hose only has to stay on tight enough during the 4 minutes it takes to gravity filter 2L of water.

However, I did make one major change to the hoser. I replaced the thick walled tubing with thin-walled medical tubing (the stretchy stuff that you could use to make a sling shot). But even that tubing is smaller than the nipple on the output of the mini. It takes a little bit of effort to put the hose over the mini-nipple... and then I only put it on enough that will allow me to pull it back off rather easily once the gravity feed is finished.

You could try using tubing with a larger inside diameter... but I think no matter what you do, you're sort of fighting a loosing battle when you want a system that allows you to reliably keep a hose on without leaking, yet still be able to easily pull it off. About the only thing that's going to accomplish both is some sort of screw-on system.

[Odd Man Out]

... but I think no matter what you do, you're sort of fighting a loosing battle when you want a system that allows you to reliably keep a hose on without leaking, yet still be able to easily pull it off. About the only thing that's going to accomplish both is some sort of screw-on system.

What about one of the quick release connections. I've not used those before, but thought about maybe putting one on a short tube on the outlet side. Attach very tightly so it doesn't come off and connect using the quick release. Again, just an idea at this point - not sure if it's a good one.

[bigcranky]

I got some quick release connectors online to build a gravity filter from some old Platypus zip top bags. The connectors worked pretty well, but then I didn't have this contraption in my pack, so I might not have noticed any leakes.

I'm happy using my Mini to filter water into my Gatorade bottles.

[slbirdnerd]

The Smartwater bottle cap that works for back flushing also fits on a screw top Platy bottle or bag. I have thought about inline but so far squeezing works for me. It really doesn't take that long, it just seems like it.