skeptical of Gear Skeptic

So, UV light is used to damage the DNA of bacteria and viruses. So, the cloudiness of the water can become a factor.

i have hiked in the Sierra and have had storm cells sweep through.  I have seen the creek levels rise and the water become much more turbid.  Cloudy enough where I have waited several hours before filtering water with a Sawyer.  My 2 cents.

Jon,  your two cents are worth more than my hundred dollars.

I just saw, finally near the end of Gearskeptics video, a picture of what he defines as turbid water in a glass jar. I’ve hiked in the Sierra for decades. I’ve never seen anything close to that mess that he shows as being ‘typical’ turbid water in my water bottle.

Yes you’re right, violent storms in the Sierra can stir up debris in creeks. I have to say that I’ve never seen the sort of cloudy, muddy water that the Gear Skeptic shows ever while hiking in the Sierra. Even after violent storms.

The thing that I like about the Gear Skeptic is that he discusses topics from multiple POVs and presents most of the ways of dealing with common issues. He is often more thorough than other presenters, and frequently presents some interesting information or creative idea.

I often come to different conclusions for my own environment and use cases. Not just the Steripen, but electrolytes, nutrition, stoves and pots, too. Nevertheless, I look forward to his vids because there is a good chance of learning something that I did not previously know. His reference chart on water filter efficacy is excellent reference material.

The conclusions are less important than the content.

How about the Sierras after the 4th?

jscott, his data is gold.   But many of his conclusions aren’t hard rules.  For example he recommends 65% food weight by fat but this only makes sense for athletes that are fat adapted.

One might occasionally need to purify highly turbid water with a lot of sediment in the rare emergency situation, but as noted above, it is a challenge for filters as well as the steripen. This has been a rare situation for me, but I remember several of these experiences vividly. If you hang water for several hours or overnight (with the cap of the bag facing downward), you can sometimes get most of the sediment to settle and drain it off before filtering. Chemical purification works well in these situations, which is one reason I always carry it as a backup.

Has anyone tried a flocculant like Water Wizard (Polyaluminum Chloride (PACL) or “PAC”)?  I’m considering it because I’ve yet to find a good prefilter for a squeeze filter.  Bandana or coffee filter were too restrictive but dried out diaper wipe so far has been best for emergency use but marginal.

Skeptical of gear skeptic????  blasphemy!!!

Okay, if you want to be skeptical, he recommends some device to determine your water is 165F.  Totally unnecessary.  You can just tell by looking at the bubbles on the bottom of the pot.  Many things he says aren’t useful for my application.

But he tells you why he recommends something so you can determine if that’s applicable for your case.  Like if your water isn’t turbid then the Steripen will be a good choice.

I think sometimes he goes overboard just for entertainment.  Either him or us.

I enjoy his videos but don’t take them as gospel. With the amount of data he churns through, I don’t expect perfection.

As usual, my initial post was too verbose and over  the top.  I like Gear Skeptic. I just found his video on Steripen  to lack nuance. More, his results don’t come close to describing my actual experience in the field using a Steripen. It’s far more dependable than he describes,  and effective given the right conditions.

I appreciate your comments jscott.  And humor.

c’mon, admit it, you were just trolling us gear skeptic fans

next you’re going to criticize freakonomics

my attempt at humor

I’m with you jscott.  I never encounter turbid water, so the criticism of steripen is not useful.  But his videos have a lot of useful information even if the official recommended best product isn’t useful.

I used a steripen a few times, but the battery kept dying.   I think that was user error – I used cheap batteries or rechargeable batteries.  Always remove batteries after a trip so they don’t discharge, and carry an extra set of batteries that are new.  Or get the steripen that has a lithium battery that you can charge before a trip.  They also kill viruses which could be good.

On my last trip I always got water from a spring, or a fairly large stream with no human development in the watershed so I didn’t bother treating it.

Yes, Steripen with chemical backup works for my purposes as well.

There is a product called Chlor-Floc which combines chemical purification with a flocculant. Here is the data sheet. It uses sodium troclosene (sodium dichloroisocyanurate) for purification. I don’t know how that stacks up to chlorine dioxide. Chlor-Floc is supposedly used by the US military and is sold by Rothco (among many other sources), so it is probably at least “legitimate” quality.

The flocculant is aluminum sulfate. I have never seen safety data on long term consumption of flocculant-treated water, but most of it precipitates out, so I’m not too concerned about it. (I hope that isn’t being overly optimistic.) :)

Chlor-Floc looks, to me, like a good backup to Steripen. Using both should kill anything and not clog up a filter. (Chlor-Floc is heavier than ClO2 tablets, so both serve a purpose.)

(Agreed that Gear Skeptic is sometimes extreme for entertainment purposes. He’s low-key funny.)

It seems to me that with silty water, chemical treatment / floculation is an ideal solution.  The chemicals need time to work and the floculate needs time to clump and settle.  It would be the lightest weight solution and seems ideal of the UL world.  My 2 cents.

You can buy aluminum sulfate (alum).  They use it to make crisp pickles, so using it as a floculant must be safe?

googled it, saw this:

https://backpackinglight.com/alum-water-clarification-backpacking/

In that article it said aluminum sulfate is acidic so you have to add something basic to neutralize this for it to work.

They sell alum for swimming pools as a floculant so maybe you could use that

I didn’t see alum at REI which would be better if had a product for trating backcountry water

Water wizard claims to be much more effective than the alum based flocculants.  See the link in my earlier post

I remember that band, a Flocculent of Seagulls.

Flocculants? that’s new to me. Hearing that it’s used in swimming pools makes  me a bit hesitant, but hey. I agree with Jon Fong: chemicals and ground up seagulls (flocculents) make the most sense for silty water. And Jerry’s  info about using something to neutralize the acidity of flocculants is good information.  Salt? Yum.

Again, I’ve spent decades hiking in the Sierra and have always been able to find clear water sources, abundantly, even after storms. so it’s Steripen for me. Up in the PNW, as I recall, it’s the same. More glacial silt perhaps in the PNW.

Occasionally I run into glacial silt, but I can usually find a side channel that’s clear

@jscott I think your point about his videos is valid. As I said, he processes a ton of data and I think his perspective is mainly from this and much less from real world hiking experience. Not knocking him, but data can only take you so far.

Modeling and lab testing are an emulation of reality.  The advatange is that you can learn about what the significant variables are, dep[endencies and understand the sensativities.  This alows you to determine what is critical and what is not.   Sure, doing field testing is great but only if you can instrument up and measure the variables in the field.  In my early days, I would backpack to elevations over 10k feet and bring digital thermometers, pipets and anemometers with me.  The other problem is to get solid data, you need to have a significant same size of test runs.  I am going to tell you that I have not see one good example of good test data from the field that is statistically sound.

People tend to dump on benchtop testing over field testing.  I have rarely see field teting/reports that were ever that useful.  GearSkeptic does a pretty good analysis in his videos.  Far better than a lot of the armchair quarterbacks chiming in.  If you don’t like the results, I recommend that people collect their own and do a detailed analysis and share it with the public.  My 2 cents.

bench tests are good because you control all the variables, like wind speed or temperature.  Just vary the variable you want to characterize.  It requires fewer samples to get statistical significance.

field tests are good because you get all the uncontrolled variables that you may not be aware of.  Something may work in the lab, but not in the field, like maybe it doesn’t work when it’s windy, but in the lab it’s calm, you’ll find that out in the field test

one could calculate p values or whatever but that’s not intuitive to most people, and you can manipulate that

I like to do 4 tests – condition 1, condition 2, condition 2, condition 1.  The difference between the two condition 1 tests, and between the two condition 2 tests will give you an idea how repeatable the test is, and if the difference between condition 1 and condition 2 is much greater, then maybe you’ve actually discovered something.  Doing 1, 2, 2, 1 will cancel out any linear errors, like as the canister gets more empty.

If the difference between condition 1 and 2 is less, then you have to figure out what you’re missing.  Maybe do some more repeats.  Or there is no significant difference between condition 1 and 2.

My patience to do endless tests is limited

I recently started using the Procter & Gamble Purifier of Water packets when dealing with turbid and contaminated water. These packets work significantly better than alum. I took them on a recent trip out west where the water quality was questionable, and I was extremely impressed with their performance. They’re reasonably priced and a single packet can purify 5 gallons of water.

https://us.pg.com/blogs/world-water-day-2022

It’s a pretty neat story. Apparently, Procter & Gamble has a rather large charity arm focused on providing pure water for the developing world. Their washing machine soap division apparently developed this stuff.  I think they sell it to the public on a you buy one for you and we donate one where it’s needed basis.

FWIW:  Despite the fact that my wife goes insane when I watch Gear septic on the TV in the living room, I watch every minute of it.

my wife tolerates me watching the gear skeptic in the living room and participates as best she can

“People tend to dump on benchtop testing over field testing.  I have rarely see field teting/reports that were ever that useful.”

Note  the rhetorical maneuver here: “people dump on benchtop testing…”,followed  by…dumping on field testing/reports. Neat!

As Jerry points out, it’s difficult or impossible for bench tests to replicate field conditions. too many variables in real world! and there’s  always that condition that comes  up  in  the field that  one forgot to test in the lab. D’oh!

Freakonomics gets under some folks’ skin because they use the equivalent  of bench tests to disprove common assumptions. Last  year Jerry annoyed me when he tested boil times for a pot of water with and then without a lid, and found there was no difference. No way!! I said. I’ve always been told to put a lid on a pot  to get a faster boil time. In my house, where there’s  no wind and temps are about a constant 66% , it turns out it doesn’t make much or any difference. So Jerry was right…and now I’m annoyed  all  over having to write that. In the wild, with winds and 40%  temps, I  still put a lid  on the pot. Rightly or  wrongly.

Common wisdom based purely on experience can be very effective. Bench tests  can  be too.