Dry a Sawyer in the microwave?

Not sure we will find someone to try this out for us. And then how will we know if it is not damaged internally, with no external signs? If you ask sawyer, i am sure they will advise against this.

What are some other ways to help it dry out faster? Push air through it instead of water with an empty platy?

If I put my Sawyer in my special place, I don't think I'd want to use it again…..

But one of the tricks I learned from BPL some time ago was to use a cheap aquarium air filter to dry out platys and such. Works wonders. Don't know why it wouldn't work for a Sawyer as well.

I'm thinking the water molecules turning to steam within the membrane would rupture the hollow tubes.

Or maybe melt some of the adhesive holding the end caps on or the filter media to the housing. (Assuming there is some there of course)

Ryan

I'm thinking the plastic might melt or at least be degraded.

I think without using an aquarium pump it will never dry.

Rather than drying experiments, I would rather see freezing experiments, but again, there's no way to test filter to see if it still works.

Sounds risky. Any remaining water could steam the capillary tubes to unknown effect. Shake it out and hang it on your pack to complete drying if you are afraid of leaving it behind.

Yeah, you guys are probably right. Another one of my incredibly creative ideas that is actually quite stupid.

So here's the deal: my cute little Mini Sawyer was put to its first patio test yesterday. The filter weighed a scant 1.4 oz. dry, right out of the box. I set up my 4 L. Platy zip dirty bag, added an MSR Silt Stopper in line, and a total bag-to-filter hose length of 40". The clean Platy was a 2-L bag. I timed things, and I was amazed at the speed of filling up the clean bag–1 minute, 51 seconds! I shut things down, emptied the clean Platy, and repeated the test. Nearly identical, 1 minute, 53 seconds. It worked so fast that I thought maybe Sawyer forgot to put a filter inside. I expected that the Silt Stopper would slow things down a bit. Anyway, I tore things down and placed everything in the sun to dry out for a few hours. Around sunset, I took the kit into the house, since we were expecting a soft freeze overnight. I shook the filter vigorously, then weighed it–it was now 1.85 oz, or .45 oz. of retained water. I placed it on the kitchen window sill overnight, and this morning it still weighed 1.85 oz. After creating this thread, and before seeing any of your replies, I took the backflush syringe to it and forced air through it maybe 20 times (I shot air through the dirty end). I was amazed how much water came out–it then weighed 1.65 oz. So I got half the water out. But I'm thinking I need to hit an aquarium store today.

On the other hand, Doug, in the interest of pure science, I think you should step up and take one for the team. Microwave the heck out of your Sawyer, go hiking, drink scads of water, and report back. The worst-case scenerio would be that you'd end up with a couple weeks of sick time, and you could lay on the couch and watch football games. Maybe you could time things so that you get sick during the New Year's bowl week?

I wonder what other silly ideas I will come up with today…?

Sure, but you have to wrap it in bacon first.

Why exactly do you want to fully dry your filter in the first place. First, when the tubes get to dry out fully they get smaller (the plastic holds a little moisture to stay pliable) and this dramatically reduces water flow. Second, in the field you won't be able to dry the filter either so there is no usable weight savings by fully drying the filter. I would just stick with backflushing with air to remove the bulk of liquid water and note the operational weight gain of a wet filter.

Microwaves heat water molecules using radiation. That's why you can put plastic bowls in a microwave.

Something that isn't "Microwave Safe" is not being heated by the microwave; it's melting in contact with superheated water (in the food). In the case of clay-type dishes that aren't microwave safe, that means there's trapped air in the clay that expands when the water vapor in it is heated, potentially causing it to explode and making it very hot.

The microwave won't necessarily melt the sawyer, but the superheated water might. It's not the worst idea I've ever heard, though.

A toaster oven on the lowest setting would have better luck.

aquarium pump ?

air—->[$8 air pump] —-hose—[Sawyer Filter]—->air

I have said it a bunch of times before… why is everybody overly complicating all of this? Sawyer gives you the solution right there in the box that the filter came with… the syringe.

Use your syringe in backflushing mode without any water in the syringe… just air. It will take a dozen or so times but you can blow almost all of water out of these filters within a minute or two.

If it is time to store it for the winter, give it a few more blasts of air until water stops comes out, flushing it with air from both ends of the filter.

Simple, effective and fast enough solution.

+John Abela

Max –
"…it's melting in contact with superheated water (in the food)…

Water in recipes is full of salts, seasoning, and general "stuff" that serve as the nucleation sites
for standard boiling at 212°F.

Superheated water Can occur in pure (distilled) water, but even then the temperature is still within 10° of typical boiling.

Melting plastic containers is most likely the result of the oils in the food.

Dustin is right. Sawyer recommends not allowing the filters to dry out. This was part of the discussion when people were having the problems with very slow flow rate through the filters.

"Sawyer recommends not allowing the filters to dry out."

… for regular use. (That's why they tell you how to prime a New filter.)

Storage is a different situation.

(I let evaporation/diffusion do the job, in high and dry Colorado)

+1 On what John said.

What I do with my 1st generation, black sawyer filter is to suck the water out of it from the clean side, as much as I can.

I can shake the filter to get anything else out of it.

Air dry.

Inside is hollow plastic tubes and some resin…..nothing should grow inside of it as it is just plastic.

Besides, at the end of a trip you are supposed to run some clearn water through it with a few drops of bleach…to kill anything inside.

I would definitely not run it in a microwave.

I guess you could toss the Sawyer filter into your car on a warm day to help dry it out….that is what I do with my playtpus bags, but never found a need to do that with my Sawyer filter.

Tony

don't have one so I cannot test this, but how about something like this :

hair dryer set on cold…

Put it in the oven at 60C for a few hours.

while I have not microwaved my Sawyer. I did experiment with microwaving a an old MSR ceramic filter (years before I got the Sawyer). You have to go very slowly at this (microwave for a few second, wait until it cools completely and then microwave it for a few more seconds). If you go too fast the steam inside the filter can get very hot, expand and move out through the plastic exhaust port of the filter. I stopped when I noticed the plastic was getting soft. Although the filter still worked I did replace it.

I have also used an oven once I was very confident I could get a stable low 140F temperature (again with the MSR filter). Personally, I have found that leaving a filter inside the car with the windows up on hot sunny is the most effective in drying out wet gear including filters. A parked car doesn't consume any energy and temperatures on a sunny day can easily exceed 100F while easily staying below the melting point of plastics.

Sorry, double post.