Wide Mouth Containers to use with Steripen

[Dondo .]

I bought a Steripen Adventurer back in 2007 and have used it on and off since then. Mostly off because I have the early Steripen that had problems with drawing too much current even when it was turned off. In order to preserve battery life, I would flip a battery between uses. It got to be a pain to use my thumbnail or a coin to unscrew the battery cover and flip a battery both before and after use.

Recently, though, I replaced the stock screw that covers the battery compartment with a knurled-head screw and a couple of nuts. This has made the process so easy that I’m again using the Steripen.

Over the years, I’ve used a number of wide-mouth containers to facilitate stirring the water with the Steripen. I’ll include the weights if I still have them on hand. Here are the ones I remember:

Cut-down Foster’s Beer Can: Pros: light, doubles as a cook pot. Cons: fragile, requires the extra step of filling your water bottle, the epoxy coating on the inside makes it a dubious choice as a cook pot

Nalgene 1l canteen. Pros: light. Cons: mine didn’t last too long. Not sure if this is even available any more.

Plastic bag: Pros: very light. Cons: fragile, very floppy, hard to fill in stream, requires the extra step of filling your water bottle.

Cut-down Platy: Pros: very light (0.4 oz.), reasonably sturdy, easy to fill at source, doubles as a water scoop if needed. Cons: requires the extra step of filling your water bottle.

Cut-down PET bottle: Pros: very light, reasonably sturdy, easy to fill at source, doubles as scoop. Cons: requires the extra step of filling your bottle.

Gatorade 1l bottle with extra cut-out cap and gasket: Pros: reasonably light, sturdy. Cons: a bit too much faff for me—extra bottle cap to deal with, having to turn upside-down to stir thoroughly.

Nalgene HDPE .5l bottle: Pros: bomber, leak-proof cap, fits nicely in the hand. Cons: at 2.5 oz, it’s a bit on the heavy side. Nevertheless, I’ve probably used this bottle more than any other on this list. The capacity is just right for my use and it’s been very dependable. Some have claimed to not be able to see through the HDPE bottles. This hasn’t been an issue for me. Just find some shade. If above treeline, make some shade with your body

Nalgene HDPE 1l bottle: Pros: bomber, leak-proof cap. Cons: at 4 oz, it’s one of the heaviest I’ve carried.

Peanut Butter Jar: Pros: reasonably light, sturdy, fits nicely in the hand. Cons: the lid leaks. However, I recently found that a standard canning lid fits perfectly inside the peanut butter jar lid. The rubbery gasket stops the leaking at a cost of 0.2 oz.
:

Planter’s Peanut Jar: Pros: reasonably light, sturdy, fits nicely in the hand. Cons: lid is not leak-proof. If I can find a gasket for the lid, this could do when I need higher capacity.

Various Bike Bottles: The ones I have on hand right now weigh between 2.3 and 4.4 oz. One con is that they are opaque, making it more difficult to see if the light is on. I’ve never gotten sick using one of these but the fact that they all have an indentation in the middle makes me wonder if they are optimal for Steripen use.

Others I’ve seen but not tried: using your cooking pot, the Bott, the US Plastics HDPE jars sold at Litesmith, various sizes of Peanut Butter jars in the supermarket.

There may have been others but that’s all I can remember.

For now, my go-to Steripen/drinking bottle will be the Peanut Butter jar with gasket at 1.6 oz. That’ll save 0.9 oz over my previous go-to above.

Have I missed any? Have a different list of pros and cons? Prefer the Classic 3 or the Ultra? Let me know below.

[Murali C]

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.

[David Thomas]

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.

[Greg Mihalik]

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.

[BlackHatGuy]

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

[Cameron M]

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

[David Thomas]

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.

[Russ Bogardus]

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

[Mike M]

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 :)

[Dondo .]

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.

[Randy Nelson]

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

[Greg Mihalik]

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.

 

[Mike M]

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

[John S.]

Zefal Magnum 1 liter bottle- 99 grams

Nalgene hdpe 1 liter bottle- 108 grams

Gatorade Gatorskin 1 liter bottle- 126 grams

[AK Granola]

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.

[John S.]

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.

[Ken Larson]

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

 

[James Marco]

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. )

 

[DWR D]

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

[James Marco]

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.

 

[DWR D]

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

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