FYI experience with the new 3L HydraPak. Failed me early on.

Sorry for the 5 posts.  Hit submit, nothing happened for a minute.  Tried couple more clicks of submit button, went upstairs came back down, still not submitted.  Now they are all there ;^)   Forehead slap.

I have the HydraPak 3L. Out of the box I filled and emptied it several times, then filled it again and tasted it. Yuck! Plastic/rubber!

Tried filling it and letting it sit overnight, rinse, repeat, several times but I could never get rid of the taste so I ended up never using it. I keep it around as sort of a last ditch emergency/bug out container if I have absolutely nothing else.

I had the same experience as David G above.  Returned it the next day to REI.

Cheers.

Hydrapak makes bladders for the 2 biggest pack makers Osprey and Gregory. I found a noticeable plastic taste at first. I found a vinegar solution allowed to soak a couple days did the trick for me. But taste buds vary so try vinegar, baking soda, citric juice or what have you. The only bladder I found without taste was a Source that I got in Canada. Different plastic than CamelBak or Hydropak.

I have two of those hydrapack 3L log shaped flexible water bottles.

I’ve left them full in the freezer for months at a time, full in the back seat foot well in my car in the desert for summer months. I’ve mostly used them outside in Joshua tree. Edit: … and they work great. I rely on them in the Joshua tree after years of abuse.

I dont roll them up because they take up less room laying flat.

Mine have different lashing points, it looks like they updated this product.

Id try their warranty if I bought another one and it failed like that; seems like a manufacturing defect to me.

Their website says BPA and PVC free and the materials are TPU, PP, Nylon. From this I assume they are using food grade polypropylene film.

Platy uses PP caps, and both platy and evernew use PE film.

You could be tasting terroir from the factory as much as leachates from the food grade films; hence trying different soaks and rinses.

I’ve had a hydrapack 3L for years now, and it has worked fine. Either you just got bad luck, or maybe part of a bad run.

If it tasted funny initially, it doesn’t now.

Possibly true.  But 2 people in this short thread with the issue isnt the best starting stat (2 of 6, 33%   ;^)

Cnoc bladders-similar material-have horrid chemical taste if water is stored more than an hour. I only use for dirty water filtering.