I was just wondering if there is a certain way you guys purify water on the go.

I have a 32 Oz. Widemouth Nalgene, and I plan on using Katadyn MP1 tablets with it. But... I was thinking, How are you supposed to get the contaminated water in the bottle without getting contaminated water on the threads of the mouthpiece? The Water Purifier Tablet will not get to the threads and you will be placing your lips right on them every time you drink. Unless you are using a HumanGear CapCAP, You are just asking for parasites to make you sick. I plan on buying a CapCAP but, I am wondering, If i do not get the chance to, what do I do?

Also, If the Water Purifier Tablets require a dark place for 4 hours, where is the dark place? I know you could put it in your pack, but that would add weight and I would want to leave it if im OTG (On The Go).

They have Water Filters that fit on the threads but those have a limited life, are cumbersome, and are too expensive for me. I haven't gotten to go to REI any time soon, so I will have to hold off on the CapCAP.

I cant wait to figure this out! Thanks

If your using tablets with threaded bottle you unscrew the cap a bit and invert bottle so the process affects the threads

Treatments pretty much come down to chemicals, heat, UV exposure, and filtration. Filtration, ideally through activated carbon, is the only one that is going to be reliable against the potentially toxic man-made chemicals common in urban and suburban environments.

I'm not sure what storing a quart/liter of water for a time is such an issue. At about two pounds I can't imagine how it could be an issue. Five gallons, at roughly eight pounds per gallon, forty pounds, would be prohibitively heavy and fairly bulky. But a liter or two ... not so much.

CAPcap is interesting. Works great, but the smaller cap likes to get stuck and is hard to work wearing gloves. Great idea, but I give it a solid "blah". I have one on my EDC bottle- 3 times out of four, it is the big cap that unscrews.

As was mentioned, let the tabs dissolve, loosen slightly, invert the bottle, shake a few times, seal it back up.

I recommend having specific bottles for the purification stage, preferably clear ones. I then transfer them to my steel bottles (which I try to put only potable in UNLESS I'm going to be boiling it, which will heat the bottle enough to kill anything nasty on it) and/or or a bladder (which never, EVER has anything but potable in it).

And what water filters have a limited life? Let them dry before you store them and you're fine. In the field, let them dry out overnight.

Edit: By limited life, do you mean limited stored life, or limited usage life? I read it inintially to mean stored life like chemical treatments do. But yes, they do have a limited life cycle on the filter, but depending on the model that can be thousands of liters.

Another idea I had, not sure if it would work but what if you took a bic lighter and heated the threads for a few seconds. I don't know if it would have any effect, but I was thinking localized high temps may kill on contact on the thread portion of a stainless steel bottle threads. Any thoughts of how much temperature it would take and time to kill localized on the threads. If in doubt, I just heat the whole bottle in a fire and boil the water.

As mentioned earlier, most chemical methods rely on letting treated water contact the threads by holding it upside down and loosening the cap a bit. This is done EARLY in the treatment - not at the end.

You won't have to worry about water on bottle threads with most filters since they pump straight into the bottle from an input tube that typically sits in the source water.

When using the basecamp filters - where you pour water in the top and let gravity move the water down through the filter - people often use collapsible buckets or "dirty bottles" to fetch the water, but drink out of dedicated bottles (including collapsible bladders). This is what Ironraven's recommendation is.

I'm not sure how the UV wand users deal with potentially contaminated water on the outside lip of the bottle - unless one is just very careful to pour the water in the bottle without getting any on the outside lip/threads - a funnel might hep.

I've used both chemicals (tablets & MIOX) and a filter (Hiker). No real preferences either way. They both work.

Yeah, filters have a "limited" life. But then again, so do MP1 tablets. And I gaurantee you'll get more use out of 1 filter than 1 pill. And probably better price. I don't think I've ever "out drank" a filter yet. And if you do, you swap filters.

I think the 4 hours is only for really dirty water - read the instructions, I think it might be OK after 2. Which means you'll likely need 2 bottles, one working, one to drink from. I assume you'll have plenty of water to access, so you can fill as you go. Where I camped, in CA, it was "thank God there's water at this creek! Everyone top off!"

Same thing though - slosh the clean water onto the threads. Done this for years with no problems.

Personally, I'm a filter guy. Pills are a distant second... or even third, if I boil water.

i use a one-half liter stainless steel mug that fits on the bottom of my one liter nalgene to collect the water - good to get those hard to reach water sources + has the benefit of allowing heavier debris to sink to the bottom of the mug - before carefully pouring the unclean water into the nalgene. then steripen (the aforementioned uv wand) for 90 secs and voila, you're done.

a microbiologist might argue this point, but i believe that unless the water is heavily contaminated with organisms or has very virulent organisms in it, a few drops on the rim shouldn't cause any great distress. the body needs a certain amount of colonies to cause distress.

i am NOT saying to ignore the threads. but a drop or two shouldn't hurt you.

I forgot to mention I carry a 18 Oz. GSI Outdoors Stainless Steel Cup with my Nalgene, I could scoop water with that and then carefully pour it in my Bottle! I figured it out!

Assuming you don't want to use your cup later.


Or else you're kind of stuck needing to re-clean it every time you want to use it.