Sawyer Mini screwed directly onto a water bottle?

I use a Squeeze but that should be similar to mini.

I squeeze from a 2L Pepsi bottle. I'v done about 20 days of about 3L per day and so far it's held up. There are sort of wrinkles on it so I should probably replace it.

I carry three 2L bottles which is enough for 1 day. If one of them did break from squeezing it, I have 2 back-ups.

I've also tried a few water bottles.

I think a bottle works better than collapsible bag. You can put more pressure on it. There are no lap seams or seam between bag and top to break.

Air does bubble up through the filter a little, but I just unscrew filter enough to let air through, after filtering about 1/2L of the 2L bottle.

I can get essentially all the water out of the bottle.

I like that the bottle is totally clear so I can see the water inside. If there's some debris, I tilt bottle at an angle so the debris doesn't go into the filter.

I just leave filter on bottle and it just sits there. With a collapsible bag, it flops over, and I fear it migth damage the bag.

From John Holmes –

The Squeeze and Mini are similar with respect to the questions asked, regarding use of bottle vs collapsible bag.

The only use I make of output threads on Squeeze is to screw the cap on it when not filtering, partly to not lose cap, partly to keep dirt off it, but not a big deal, Mini would be fine.

The Mini is supposed to have less media so it's harder to squeeze/lower flow rate. That should actually make a bottle better than collapsible bag.

If you had female threads on the output you could backflush – that would be useful – but neither Mini or Squeeze have that

I prefer collapsible bottles as they consume very little space when empty.

My current setup uses an Evernew 2L as the dirty bag and 3 platypus 1L as the clean bottles. I've filtered well over 100 L with this setup (with both the Squeeze and now the Mini) and It's hard for me to imagine how any reasonable amount of rolling and squeezing the dirty bag would cause it to fail. The soft clean bottles eliminate any need for pressure relief.

My platys are over 3 years old and the Evernew about 1.5 years and while they obviously look used, I see no degradation in function and do not expect to replace them anytime soon. Hopefully I haven't just jinxed them :)

Yeah collapsible bottles take less room.

Sometimes I like to camp far away from drinking water, so I like to have enough room in pack to carry water. As long as there's room for occasional, then carrying empty bottles isn't a big deal.

I used to carry a 4L Platypus with a handle. Occasionally I carried it for several miles. I think it's easier to carry in my pack.

There's no right answer, good to try different methods and choose what works best for you.

Oh, I carry three 1L bottles, not 2L bottles. Of dirty water. And a 1/2L clean bottle.

I used the "bad" Sawyer bags for many trips and never had a problem. Based on other people's failures I did baby them. Maybe having 2 bags would be good just in case 1 fails.