Hollow fiber water filters slowing down – am I doing it wrong?

Bang the sawyer on a padded hard surface. Then re-back flush. Will see lots more dirt come out. This added step will help but no panacea.

Try soaking in vinegar, some water can cause mineral deposits that can clog the pores and vinegar can help dissolve/loosen them.

yeah, vinegar, there are previous threads about this.  Maybe warm vinegar?  Maybe let it soak for a while.

whatever you do, if you have hard water don’t put bleach in it and backflush filter, that will cause mineral deposits

Rebecca, mineral deposits will occur from stream, lake or tap water…that’s what clogs up the membrane most of the time.  Ya, sure, you followed the cleaning directions to the “T”, and the darn thing kept getting slower and slower.  That’s because the cleaning water was chock full of dissolved minerals, which then crystallized after the filter began to dry out, clogging up the membrane.

As mentioned above, use vinegar:  place your filter in a bowl of distilled water and maybe a capfull of vinegar overnight to cause the crystallization to go back into solution, then go through your usual procedure of cleaning and filter a qt. or so of DISTILLED water through it.  That should do it!

Happy trails.

Sawyer Mini’s do not have the capcity to filter a lot of water.  The 100,000 gallon specification is only under controlled conditions and do not represent real world situations.  It is really Marketing spin.  Since the filter is rated at 0.1 micron, this is far below the visible level so water clarity is not a great indicater of actual particulate loading.  There is a substantial amount of field date indicating that the Mini (as well as the BeFree) are not robust filtration systems.  The regular Sawyer Squeeze has about an order of magnitude more filter area than the Mini and is much more robust.  My 2 cent.

When I made a pump filter using the Sawyer Mini, there were several threads here describing what the OP has mentioned.  My trips were only for a few weeks, during which made sure the Mini did not dry out.  So just accepted the need to shell out $20 to pick one up at Walmart before each trip.  For the convenience and light weight (less than half the weight of other pump filters), thought it was on balance a good deal.  So convenient that never got around to trying a slightly heavier Platy Gravityworks cartridge instead of the Mini.

Now Monty explains the use of vinegar and distilled water before backflushing.   Will try it.  Thanks.

Ditched my Sawyer Mini quickly for all the reasons stated above.  Meanwhile my Sawyer Squeeze keeps on trucking.  I made a DIY gravity system incorporating the Squeeze, then transitioned to the black filter that comes in the blue Sawyer bottle.  Both filters have performed admirably for quite some time.  I like the black filter best as it has nipple connections thus avoiding the need for threaded adapters.

I think that if you put the filter in a bowl of vinegar water it won’t get into the hollow fibers

If you backflush with a syringe of vinegar water, maybe a couple syringes worth to make sure all the fibers are saturated with the vinegar water, then set the filter on a table with the input side up, the vinegar water will stay surrounding all the fibers.  Let it sit for a while.  Maybe repeat a few times.  Then backflush with clear water to remove all the vinegar.

These are very helpful thoughts and suggestions.  I love the speed and ease of use of the hollow fiber tube filters, but have also experienced “failures” with every single model I have tried (3 now) despite backflushing religiously and following instructions.  I will be trying the vinegar cure with a slowing-down BeFree this winter in hopes of dissolving some of those cloggy minerals.  This is a good thread.

Thanks all!

It looks like using vinegar on the BeFree is risky: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/befree-filter-update-bad-news-3-days-on-the-trail-with-5-people/page/4/#comments

I’ll try it on the Sawyer Mini.

I think my house water is somewhat hard; I’ve noticed a little cloudy residue on water glasses.

If you have hard water do not put bleach in it when you backflush

Some people have done that to disinfect it, but then it clogs up the filter

I don’t know about the amount of chlorine in drinking water

I’ve always used Portland city water to backflush Squeeze.  Never had a problem.  I’ve used it for 6 years, maybe 200 days.

Recently became tempted to try squeeze filters again after a poor initial experience 5 years ago.  Seems like nothing has changed.  I hope Aquamire can forgive my infidelity.

There was a thread awhile back about using CLR on the befree.. CLR for BeFree

I checked my filter before a recent trip and it was a little slow and I had some CLR at hand so I used the CLR method except I’m pretty sure I used an ounce to a quart and instead of putting the filter in a cup I just filled the regular reservoir with a quart of water to an ounce of CLR and it opened up the filter to good as new. It also passed the integrity test..

Used it on a six day trip in an area frequented by glaciers  ;)  and no troubles at all..

I’m sure someone versed in the chemistry of water could chime in and explain the problems with hard water and bleach and calcium deposits etc. This seems to be the root of the hollow fiber clogging problems.