Wide Mouth Containers to use with Steripen

I use the 0.5 L Nalgene wide mouth specifically for this. I don’t care about the weight as I can never lose the cap and it is easy to hold the bottle with lid closed while I open the Steripen to sterilize. Of course, if you lose that bottle then you have a problem. I did forget my Nalgene after resupply in a fridge. I had to use my Smartwater bottles – which was okay. The Nalgene also works well when you have to add Nuun tablets (which I had to break in half to get it into the Smartwater bottle) or Gatorade powder. Also, it has the milliliter markings if you want to add a specific amount of water to your food.

Nice summary.  Thanks Dondo!

Remember that agitating or stirring the water throughout is an important part of the treatment, so your bottle has to allow for that.

The cut-down PET bottle hadn’t occurred to me and, yeah, light, free, good geometry for fully utilizing the UV pattern, very stir-able.  Are you think of a cut-down 1-, 1.5- or 2-liter soda bottle?  Although it’s harder to pack away, I like the geometry of the 2-liter, cut to 1.5 liters and filled to about 1 liter per treatment.

Murali: I’ve used the 0.5-liter wide-mouth Nalgene on day hikes when it’s just me and I’m not concerned about battery life on the SteriPen.  And my SteriPen only has a 1-liter setting, so it gets zapped more than enough.

This is a Kroger 32 fluid ounce milk bottle weighing 1.6 ounces, with a 32 millimeter opening –

In water freshly ground black pepper will sink to the bottom.   By swirling the SteriPen I can created a vortex that will raise the pepper to the top. As I reduce my swirl speed it sinks to the bottom. I get numerous rotations in a 90 second cycle.

I use a cut down platy to fill, through a two-layer no-seeum “sock” to filter the big stuff.

I use the cut down platy-type bottle (mine’s an Israeli brand, and it’s blue, so easier to see the light working).

I just use my multi-purpose Talenti Gelato cup. Really, anything works.

Until last week, I thought anything worked, too, although a few thoughts about turbulent versus laminar-flow mixing from my Reactor Design class were nagging me from deep in my brain.  That paper I’ve cited comparing with and without agitation makes total sense to me but I hadn’t grasped the magnitude of the difference.

95% versus 99.99% is huge.  1/20 germs surviving compared to 1/10,000 surviving.  That means you’d need to do THREE un-agitated treatments (but with shaking in between) to equal ONE agitated treatment period.

Greg’s container doesn’t have a great geometry for the UV and it is inherently harder to agitate, but his clever test with the black pepper has informed him how much he has to swirl it around to keep it well-mixed, which is more mixing than I bet most any of us have been doing.

Hi Dondo,

I’ve used a Steripen for over ten years. Started with a Nalgene canteen and then switched to a Hellman’s wide mouth clear plastic mayonnaise container.   Holds 32 oz., weights 1.7 oz. and fits into the outside mesh pocket of by MLD Murmur.

Cheers,

Russ Bogardus

I’m firmly in the cut down 2 liter Platy camp- cut to ~ 1.3 liters; my Adventurer fits in the bottom perfectly and I roll it up and use a small (but wide-ish) rubber band to secure it.

It’s easy to scoop, stable and easy to stir in; the extra couple of seconds to pour into a Gatorade bottle (or Platypus) never seemed much of a hassle- more hassle stirring for 90 seconds :)

Thanks to all who replied.  Hopefully, BPL readers looking for an appropriate container to use with their Steripen will find this thread.

Muerli, yeah, I learned first hand of the usefulness off that tether.   In an attempt to shave weight, I cut it off.  Maybe I saved 0.1 oz.  Several trips later, the cap somehow jumped out of my pocket into a stream.

David, the cut off PET bottle was just something I fished out of my recycle bin before a trip.  I remember marking it for 1 L , so it had to have been at least 1.5 L.  But as you mention, the geometry is better in a 2 L.  It was a bit awkward to carry on the outside of my pack, so I sacrificed one of my old plays for my next trip.  This method seems to work well for many,  including Doug and Mike M.  BTW, thanks for posting that article from Science Direct in the other thread.  It’s what got me thinking more about sizes and shapes of bottles.   It seems that short and squat may be optimal.

Greg, that pepper vortex trick is pretty ingenious.  I was hoping that someone with the Ultra or Classic 3 would chime in.

Cameron, I can’t believe I forgot the Talenti jar.  I happened to have one on the shelf under my workbench.  Short and squat, perfect for Steripen as well as cold soaking.  It weighs 1.9 oz.  While I was rummaging around, I also found my old Planter’s Peanut bottle.  This one holds 25 oz.of water, so I’d have to use the full 90 second cycle.  It weighs 1.7 oz.

Russ, a mayonnaise bottle never occurred to me but this one looks ideal when I want to do a full liter.  At 1.6 oz. ,it’s a great weight per capacity and the shape looks real good for easy Steripen use.

It’s probably not a big deal since it’s only water, but my personal hang-up is bottles that leak.  I happen to have a couple of canning lids on hand, regular and wide mouth, so I think I’ll keep them in my pocket on grocery store outings.  You never know when you’re going to find the perfect container.

Keep those ideas coming.

Somebody on here, maybe 10 years ago,  mentioned using these with a Steripen and I have ever since.

I got new stuff –

US Plastics has a 32 fluid ounce PET bottle  that weighs 2 ounces with cap.  The opening is 48 millimeters, more that enough for a SteriPen body.

Compared to a typical 1 liter bottle, on the left, and a Planters Peanuts jar on the right it looks like this –

In the following video I added fresh ground black pepper to the water, let it settle to the bottom, and performed a “swirl test”.

When I purify I don’t stop swirling.  I stop and start in this video to highlight the mixing. Although it is hard to see in the video, I am moving the top of the SteriPen in a circle, and the bulb does the same to create the vortex.

The bottle number is 071496. The cap number is 060243.  Bottle cost is $0.71.  A cap is $0.21. The shipping is $16 for 5 bottles and caps. So for me, $4 per bottle.

^ that looks like a pretty nice bottle-would fit my shoulder pouch nicely; too bad they gouge you so hard on shipping :(

Zefal Magnum 1 liter bottle- 99 grams

Nalgene hdpe 1 liter bottle- 108 grams

Gatorade Gatorskin 1 liter bottle- 126 grams

Sacrilege on BPL since it’s not the lightest solution, but I just use the lightest weight Nalgene to use the Steripen. A Nalgene is nice to have for a hot water bottle too. I pour the water into my drinking bottle through a handiwipe to remove wigglies. It’s fast and easy.

The 40 oz bag (14 grams) of mountain trail mix will hold up to 2 liters of water for steripen treatment (for a bowl type container instead of tall). The bottom spreads out to make it stand on its own (forgot term for that). Then you can just pour into whatever container you usually use such as a smartwater bottle.

Tomorrow I will try a 26 oz bag that will probably hold 1 liter easily.

32 ounce Ziploc Twist N Loc Container for water purification, storage & kitchen use.

I use a couple Gatoraid bottles for hiking. These are fine for the Adventurer Opti. They do not allow the Adventurer to drop through the hole…never used an extra cap. Open a full bottle, drop in the Adventurer for about 40 sec, done.

There are several tricks to this. 1) if there isn’t enough water, you can add more from your second bottle. When it is done, you can add enough in the second bottle to do it. 2) You do not need to tighten the cap on the Adventuer that much. Just a full twist or so  is enough. 3) The newer Adventurer (Opti) doesn’t draw a lot of electricity. I only flip the batteries between trips (for storage.) 4) Swirl the water, don’t shake it. Only a slight exchange of water is needed for the UV to hit it. 5)  Warm batteries (around body temp) perform better than cold batteries. Keep it in your pocket.

(The older Adventurer required a full full bottle to establish contact with the water. But, these are easily bypassed with a little soldering work. DO NOT LOOK AT THE LIGHT! UV-C can damage your eyes. )

James… older Adventurer Opti? Newer? er… could you clarify??? How older? How Newer? I have and Adventurer Opti that is maybe 2 years old and it does indeed need a ‘full full’ Gator Aide Bottle… but is my 2 year old Adventurer ‘older’ or ‘newer’ ????  I really have not seen any differences in this model is maybe the past 10 years or so… what am I missing? Please clarify…

thanks,

DWR

Newer. The older Adventurer had metal contacts to know when it was immersed in water or not. I just made a clip out of aluminum foil to bypass this safety. Maybe 10-15 years old? Not sure, my newer one is about 4 years old, now. I lost the old one about 5 years ago on a trip. They both work well, not gotten the ‘craps’ in about ten years. I picked up a new one (about a year old) when mine started flashing lights about a bad bulb. Turns out it was just a low voltage screw up. I changed the batteries and it worked fine. I believe it just failed to initialize properly.

Well… my ‘older one’ Adventurer Opti is about 10 years old, and the newer is just over a year… they look identical to me… Anyway, I have been using them for about 10 years to treat water in 1 liter Gator Aide bottles. It’s a snug fit… and you have to fill them full full in order to get the UV light to come on, but they have been dependable and I have not been sick on any backpack… or after.

DWR