BeFree vs Saywer vs MSR TrailShot – effectiveness, reliability and choice?

Steripen. Perhaps with a Befree as a second water bottle/backup.

Of course, much depends on where you’re hiking.

I have been using the Sawyer filter since 2008 in one form or another.

Been rock solid for me, but the flow/filter rate is painfully slow…especially with the mini.

I just bought the BeFree and in my kitchen, I am blown away with how fast the rate of flow is with CLEAN water.

Going to take it out on a 4 day trip at the end of the month, but I AM taking my Sawyer mini with me as a backup.

I am not worried about the Hydropak made water bottle to fail.

I am mostly concerned to see how field cleanable the BeFree is, since it CANNOT be back flushed like the Sawyer.

The idea of simply swishing it around in water or shaking the bottle and filter with water to dislodge clogging particles/material is just novel and makes me a little skeptical.

The BeFree has been out for a year and there is not a lot of reports of people’s experiences using it on long distance trips.

I did read about bottle failures, but word is that the new BeFree bottles are marginally heavier, but are more durable/thicker material.

Once my trip is done, I will share my experience back here with everyone.

Going to be a 36 miles trip over 4 days in the Sierras….not super long, but should give it a good break in.

Tony

Katadyn BeFree – has high flow rate, compact and super simple. Suffers from lack of compatible containers and adapters.

Well, there is at least one compatible container, in the Hyrdapak, and it is an outstanding container, in my opinion. It is strong, flexible, has a big mouth and is unlikely to be confused with a Platypus. As far as adapters are concerned, the best one (for any drip filter) is the TornadoTube. Unlike tubing, it won’t pull out, which means you can hang the whole thing off of a branch (with three liters of water in the lower container). So, if you want to do the drip thing, just fill the Hydrapak, attach the filter, screw on the TornadoTube, screw on your Platypus, and hang.

I’ve used the Sawyer, and it is a great filter, but I just find the BeFree system to be easier and better. Not only does the water flow more freely (although obviously this can change over time) but I have less annoying moments. The bag has a bigger mouth, which means getting water from a lake is easy. The bag looks nothing like a Platypus (and the mouth is different) which means I am way less likely to “space out” and take a drink from the dirty container. I use it both as a “sip and go” system, and a drip system, and I’m happy with it.

Ross,

Hydrapak Seeker water bottles perfectly fit the BeFree.

http://hydrapak.com/shop/water-storage/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIypPw4cbG1QIVVVgNCh0JowAUEAAYASAAEgIrmPD_BwE

I bought both the 2L and 3L ones when I bought my 1L BeFree at REI.

The 2L was $18 and the 3L was $19.95 at REI.

https://www.rei.com/search.html?q=seeker+water+bottle&origin=web&ir=q%3Aseeker+water+bottle&page=1&fx=stores%3Anull

@Tony — Yep, that’s what I own (a 3 liter Hydrapak Seeker). I’ve had it for over a year (along with my BeFree filter).

What great choices we have these days!

I purchased a Sawyer Squeeze when they first came out and only used it twice.  I do not have the patience to fill the silly bags that came with the filter and was not pleased with all the extra stuff I felt like I needed to carry with it to make it work.

I have an MSR Trailshot and find it to be an amazing little filter for some uses:  trail running, fishing, mountain biking primarily, or any endeavor where you are near or frequently crossing bodies of water.  It really is quite good at doing what it was designed to do, which is filter protozoans and bacteria for one person on the go.  While it could potentially be used as a primary filter for one or two people, it really isn’t very efficient that way, and I would hate to do all the squeezing it would take to pump out several liters of water.  I use a lot of MSR’s gear and have found their products in general to be very trustworthy.

I also have a 1st-generation Katadyn BeFree filter, and of the 3 things you are asking about, I think this one is the bomb!  I’ve used it for trips in Yellowstone and the Colorado Rockies since last summer, have run somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 liters of water through it, and have had no issues whatsoever.  I only use it for drinking on the fly, not as a gravity system – for my main filter I use a Platypus and typically filter 4-5 liters of water to have around camp using that.  LIke the Trailshot, the BeFree is optimized for drinking on the fly and only filters particles, protozoans, and bacteria.  (If chemicals or heavy metals are an issue, there are better products – most filters do not handle those.)  Since my hiking/backpacking trips almost always involve fishing, the BeFree is just a no-brainer to carry in lieu of a more cumbersome and time-consuming filter system.  As others have attested to, it does seem to be “hackable” and can be used as a gravity system.  Guess I’ve drunk the BeFree koolaid!

I’ve got two MSR pump-types, several Sawyer Minis, and now a BeFree.  The BeFree has easily double the flowrate of the Mini, maybe triple.  It’s my new system until someone else betters it.  The only exception is if I were headed somewhere where I know all the water sources are grungy.  Then I’d take my MSR Miniworks, the most easily and thoroughly field serviceable filter I know of.

As for 99.9 vs 99.99*, I couldn’t care less.  I frequently swim in mountain lakes and accidentally drip untreated water into my bottle now and then, either of which causes me to take in more bad water than I’d ever take in from a merely 99.9% filter.

Jenny,

Thanks for sharing your experience with using the various filters.

Since you have had the BeFree for a while, have you noticed any slow down of the flow rate on your trips?

If so, does the “swishing” the BeFree filter in the bottle or in a stream really help to restore the flow rate?

Appreciate any insight on field use and care of the filter.

Thanks!

Tony

have you noticed any slow down of the flow rate on your trips?

One idiosyncracy to be aware of: after the BeFree has dried out (e.g., between trips) it acts as though it were completely clogged until it’s had time to soak for a while. The soaking takes longer than you’d want to wait at a stream, so it’s best to soak it before you leave home or else attach to a filled bag as you start hiking.

have you noticed any slow down of the flow rate on your trips?

After the first few trips, the BeFree got a little slower than when it was new. But after using the BeFree for most of this spring and summer on several overnighters and many day hikes, the flow rate seems to have reached a plateau with no noticeable reduction in flow in the last few months.

Todd’s comments about the dry filter are correct – it takes 10 to 20 minutes for the filter to begin “waking up” and want to filter again after it has been completely dried. After a few hours it seems to run normally again. The best practice is to wet the filter at home the night before your trip, or before you starting driving to the trailhead. I also keep the filter pointed down with water in the bottle at night and lay it close to my quilt, in case it gets below freezing at night.

So far the 1.0L bottle has held up fine to moderate bushwhacking and climbing over many downed trees and through overgrown trails. The pros outweigh the cons IMHO compared to Sawyer filters. For a longer trip I’d carry an extra 0.6L bottle as a backup, or maybe a Hydropak instead of a 1.0L smartwater bottle for storage.

Well,

I’ve just placed an order for BeFree and 2L bottle as I don’t quite trust the 0.6L that comes with the filter. Hopefully it will serve me well and not get me sick.
Thanks for the information about getting the filter wet before heading out in order to give it time to absorb water and unclog.

If ever in doubt about getting sick, just follow the procedure for checking integrity by trying to blow back air through a wetted filter. As Todd mentioned, you are much more likely to get an excessive burden of protozoa of bacteria via swimming or splashing than drinking from a functioning BeFree filter IMHO.

The one thing to keep in mind though, after you dip the soft bottle into the water, and then hold the filter upside down and start drinking, untreated water can potentially run down the outside and into your mouth if you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing. If the water is suspect, I like to dry the outside of the bottle on my shirt before drinking. Also, if you don’t screw on the threads of the filter tight enough, obviously untreated water may leak out and down into your mouth as you invert it to drink. Both situations are pretty easy to avoid IMHO.

AFA flow rates as the BeFree has aged, my experience mirrors others’:  filter is a bit slow when dry but ramps right back up after saturating for a few minutes.  I also have experienced an apparent plateau effect.  The filter might be a tad slower now than when new, but still perfectly acceptable and easy to use.

This is a pretty amazing product and I am pleased to have it.  REI clearanced a bunch of these out last fall at a super cheap price (1st generation?), so I bought a bunch.  Added them to the gear hoard!

I’ve never owned a filter, too much weight (remember, this is backpackinglight.com). Last month I hiked with Doug Ide who had two BeFree units. I was pretty impressed with the one liter set up. Soft bottle with a much lager cap opening than my platys and I think the entire kit is less than 3 ounces. Much easier to fill the bottle from a stream than a platy. He would fill the bottle, screw on the cap/filter and immediately be able to drink from the spout with a large flow rate.

In my mind, I question how effective the filter cleaning process will be overtime.

I’ll be watching for long term reviews and if it continues to perform as advertised I may end my decades old prohibition on filters and ask my wife to buy me one for Christmas.

All my platys are several years old and not as pliable as they once were, so it is getting close to replacement time. If the filter could screw onto a large Gatorade bottle, I would buy one today. Apparently the cap is about the same size, but different threads. I use two 64 ounce Gatorade bottles for desert trips when water is scarce and they are less likely to get punctured by thorns than a platy.

If the filter could screw onto a large Gatorade bottle, I would buy one today.

The problem with that, other than threads, is there’s no way for air to get back into the rigid bottle as you drink.  I’ve heard of people retrofitting some sort of fish tank gizmo into the bottle, but I haven’t tried it.

For a rigid bottle, drill a small hole, cover with duct tape and put a slit in the tape. A friend had to do that with his blue desert smartube after the small plastic thingy fell out. It worked. You might need to drink with the hole up to minimize spill which should be minimal if not turning bottle upside down.