Sawyer Mini and Platypus Drink Big Zip

I just got a Sawyer mini for my birthday and was contemplating this myself. I thought I had heard others indicate that it took a bit of work to pull water through the filter in an inline setup. What's your experience with this? How much suction does it take to draw water through the filter?

Also in an inline setup would it matter where the filter was at in relation to the bladder? Would more tubing on one side or the other cause the pressures required to change? Can't wait to get out and use mine, sure beats the heck out of the old MSR miniworks I'd stopped carrying because the thing weighed a pound.

I've been running a pretty similar setup for the last couple of years, albeit with a Platy Hoser and original Squeeze inline. It's been very foolproof and simple, love it. I run maybe 8" or so of tubing between the bladder and squeeze and then a couple more feet of tubing after the squeeze, haven't noticed any major resistance in water flow. Since it's an older Sawyer with the screw on adaptors, when I get to camp I unscrew the output side adaptor and replace with a smart water cap for an instant gravity filter.

It's been good to me. Although I do have a Mini as well, I won't be using it with my inline setup. Being a push fitting output instead of unscrewing is a deal breaker for me since I use it as a gravity setup so often, and prefer to leave that last couple of feet of drinking tube attached/routed to the pack. I also *hear* that the flow of the mini is slightly less then the squeeze, which wouldn't do me any favors in gravity mode either.

For the record I use my bladder laying flat inside at the top of my pack for ease of access, not sure if that has an affect on my positive flow rates.

I was going to replace my Platypus 4 liter bag, but they didn't have it at my REI so I got 3 liter hoser. I use 1 liter soda bottle for my Squeeze so this totals 4 liters which is what I want. 3 is probably marginally adequate but 4 better.

Hoser bag is 2 oz. 4 liter bag is 2.5 oz, so I save a tiny bit. I added a small piece of webbing to hoser to better carry it. I would have got Evernew bag if they had it, but I don't think it has a carry handle.

I tried hoser bag with Squeeze and it worked without leaking. My 4 liter bag leaks. The thread size is bigger for both Platyus, but there's 1.5 turns of thread on the old 4 liter bag, only 1.25 turns on the new hoser bag.

Maybe the slightly less turns of thread of hoser bag is why it doesn't leak? Maybe it's newer and the plastic is more flexible?

Hi Jesse. I have noticed almost no additional effort required to pull water through the inline set up. I put the filter about 6 to 8 inches from drink nozzle and it's been perfect. The only thing I'm contemplating is getting a second mini filter and using it with the 2 extra soda bottles I carry so that I never have to pull any part of the platypus tube from the filter for additional uses like in camp or when having to stock up on water in big waterless stretches. (I usually just keep 2 liters in the platypus, and the soda bottles empty unless needed) The filter weighs 1.8 ounces so I think it's ok. I know I could get by without it – the second filter is just for convenience.

Matt and Jerry…thanks for your feedback. Sounds like you guys have got it figured out pretty well. If I have any big earth shattering revelations, I'll share them. I tell you, with these tiny filters I just can't figure out why you'd use anything else. I was wondering if I'm missing something obvious. Last summer I did about 70 miles of the JMT with a katadyn vario. NEVER again.

I have been using a similar setup since last year. 3 liter Big Zip as a dirty bag with an inline squeeze filter straight to my drinking tube. I do notice some resistance so have decided to add a clean 3 liter Platy Hoser on the other end to run as a gravity system. I will then run a clean tube directly to the clean Hoser for my main supply. I'm sure I could carry a Smart bottle or something but the weight penalty of the Hoser is no big deal to me. This will double my capacity when needed since I do spend sometime in the desert as well. I have come across quite a few 'scoopers' filling their squeeze bags before being able to filter whereas I could just fill my Big Zip and go which I found very convenient.