In this episode of the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft Podcast, I dive into the topic of chemical water disinfection, discussing the pros, cons, and step-by-step methods for using iodine and bleach to purify water in the wilderness. I also share personal experiences with water filtration systems, touch on pre-filtering techniques, and give a sneak peek at upcoming episodes on natural filtration systems and my new Primitive Campin' Blend Coffee.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Why Chemical Disinfection?
While not my preferred method, chemical disinfection is a reliable backup when you need to ensure water is safe to drink in the wilderness. Learn how iodine and bleach effectively kill biological contaminants like bacteria, Giardia, and viruses.
How to Use Iodine for Water Purification
Purifying Water with Bleach
Pre-Filtering Water Before Chemical Treatment
Personal Insights and Experiences
A Peek at Upcoming Episodes
Get ready to explore natural filtration methods, including tripod filters and water wells, and a detailed guide to commercial filtration systems for camping and bushcraft.
Exciting News: Primitive Campin' Blend Coffee
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of my very own coffee blend, created specifically for outdoor enthusiasts. Available in ground, coarse ground, pods, and whole beans, this coffee is perfect for brewing in the great outdoors. Tune in to learn more about its origins and how to get your hands on it!
Links & Resources:
Battlebox water filter video: https://youtu.be/2bUMiTi-Ppg?si=5rnr-KWvm1Y059TC
The bible verse mentioned about water wells: "And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river." (Exodus 7:24, NIV)
Questions for the Community:
Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your fellow adventurers. See you next time!
(upbeat music)
Welcome back to the Primitive
Camping the Bushcraft Podcast.
My name is Chris Speir
and I'm gonna be your guide
to enjoying the great outdoors.
Well, this week we're gonna talk about
something I really don't like to do
whenever I head out into the woods.
Chemical disinfection.
I really, I'm not that big on chemicals.
I don't like using
chemicals, but you know,
it is what it is.
But chemical
disinfection is one of those things
that yeah, it can kill
any kind of biological
and contaminants, but
still at some point,
it's like, you know, it's gonna cause you
some kind of cancer
or some kind of illness
or something if you use it wrong
or something like that.
So I'm not very fond of chemical
disinfection whatsoever.
But we will, we're gonna discuss it.
So last week, we used the handkerchief
and the millbating bag
and the coffee filters.
And you know, but if you did that,
you're getting the grime and
the grit out of your water.
But, but you still
have to boil that water.
Or use a commercial water filter
in order to render it safe to drink.
But you could use this
chemical disinfection
and chemical disinfection works.
It does work when I was in the military.
We use water treated
with iodine like crazy,
you know, coming straight
out of the water buffaloes
and that's what they carry water around
in these big old containers on wheels
and they would set it up
and you could drink water,
but it tastes like iodine.
It was nasty.
It had a weird flavor to it.
No matter where you went,
it always tasted the same,
whether you was in a different country
or if you were stateside.
So, but anyway, after using,
I did a couple of videos
last week on my YouTube channel
about pre-filtering your water.
We went out into the woods
and we found the nastiest
disgusting sludge pit water
that we could find had
tadpoles, had dead turtles in it.
I mean, it was disgusting.
And we figured that
that'd be the perfect spot
to pre-filter some water
and to drink some water
from a water filtration system.
In my case, it was the grill.
Now, these grills are amazing.
They are amazing tools
to filtrate your water
whenever you're out into the woods,
whenever you're out
camping, hiking, backpacking,
wherever you are, cross country,
if you're in the
mountains, it don't matter.
If you need a water filtration system,
the grill is the way to go.
Now, I had a comment
or comment saying that,
"Oh yeah, it's pretty
cool, but it's not the best."
And I'm like, "Buddy,
out of all the ones,
I've tried the hand pumps.
I've tried the squeeze.
I've tried the straws.
I've tried various pumps and everything.
The grill beats them all by miles.
And I really, really,
really, I'm not endorsed by them.
I'm not a paid whatever,
but the grill does beat
all the rest of the water filtration
systems by a long shot.
And I will continue to
fight that battle home
(laughs)
So, but chemical disinfection,
you know, various chemical disinfectants
such as chlorine or
iodine are on the market today
and potable aqua iodine,
which is these right here,
if you're watching the
video, I have in my hands,
I have some peels.
Now these all swear up and down,
they have no iodine taste or no color,
but I'm telling you right now,
they taste like iodine.
(laughs)
These, it always leaves the
water with a different flavor.
And you can always tell
when it's been treated.
Now this container will
treat up to 25 quarts of water.
25 quarts.
That's six gallons, a little
over six gallons in a quart.
Something like that.
So that's not really a lot
of water for this container,
but still nonetheless,
you know, six gallons
are still more than what you got if you
have none, you know.
This, and the label on this
potable aqua with PA plus plus
says makes questionable water
bacteriologically suitable
to drink, proven
effective against Giardia
when used as directed for
camping, hiking and travel.
So now these little dudes
right here is these peels,
you could just throw a
couple into your water, you know,
and try to limit.
So there was a study done and, you know,
I'm not a big conspiracy
theorist, but it was there.
And then all of a sudden
it was not, I don't know.
I don't know.
I was doing research
when I was writing the book
and it was there when I did my research
and I usually flagged all
my research and everything
for each topic.
Now iodine, I had to go
through and I had to do
all kinds of fat
checking and stuff like that
because, you know, you
didn't want to give out
false information.
So I did my research and one of the
government agencies,
I don't know, you know, I
don't put a lot of trust,
a lot of stock in a
government agency anyway,
but one of them did a research on iodine
and it stated that pregnant
women should not use iodine
for prolonged periods.
And so I went with it.
Now, you know, I put that in the book
and then whenever the
book people were reading it
and editing it and they come back,
one of their fact checkers there said,
"Hey, where do you
find this documentation?
I need to see it before we
can include it in the book."
And so I go back to try
to find it and my bookmark,
it was gone.
I actually said link no longer available
or something like that,
404 error or something.
And then, you know, it was gone.
That information was gone.
There was nothing I could
find anywhere that stated
that it was gone, it was bad
for pregnant women to take.
So, you know, it got
me to dig in some more
and I couldn't find some
of the other information
or something or whether
it's been two years ago now
that I was trying to
figure out for this book
and, you know, the
majority of the stuff was gone
and I was like, "Whoa, check this out."
So I ended up cutting
that section out, you know,
but still nonetheless,
when you're taking this,
according to WebMD, prolonged iodine use
might exasperate thyroid disorders
and may also cause upset
stomach and sore teeth and gums.
But, you know, here's the problem is
that's all the water
the military gave us
was iodine infused water.
And so sometimes that was the
only water we had, you know,
and especially with
the army, that was crazy.
So, but anyway, we're
gonna get into how to actually
make your own water drinkable
with regular iodine and regular bleach.
So it is very effective at neutralizing
bacteriological elements in your water,
making it safe for you to drink.
So iodine kills biological
pathogens such as Giardia,
bacteria and viruses as
effectively as chlorine bleach,
but it carries a greater risk.
Iodine should also not be
used for prolonged periods
or by people who are
pregnant or have thyroid problems.
With that in mind, research
by the CDC, the EPA, the NIH,
the WHO, FEMA has proven
that iodine is an effective way
to disinfect water from
biological contaminants.
(sighs)
All right, here we go.
So I know I'm gonna catch
a lot of flack from this.
A lot of people is gonna comment.
A lot of people is gonna quit listening
and everything like that
because I listed
those government agencies.
But here you go, here's the deal.
A long time ago in the
40s, 50s, you know, 60s,
whenever these
organizations were doing their research
and stuff like that, they
actually were reputable,
organizations before all the wokeness
and all this other garbage, you know,
today's problems were.
So a lot of this
research, a lot of this study,
a lot of the scientific
truths that come from their study
was done back in the day
when science was science.
Nowadays, science is not science.
Science is, and I don't wanna get off
into the rabbit hole.
I don't wanna get off into
the chasing of the tortoise.
But, you know, science
ain't science anymore.
But back in the day,
you know, all this stuff,
when they use chlorine
and when they use diodine
and stuff like that,
they did determine that,
hey, this stuff was effective.
So still today, that
research is still valid.
And I know a lot of you
don't wanna listen to anything
that the CDC, the EPA, the NIH, the WHO,
or the FEMA has to say, and
I get it, I understand it.
I went through the 2019, 2020 as well,
just like everybody else.
And all these organizations were wrong.
But, you know, once again,
before beginning this
purification process,
let's pre-filter our water.
How'd you like that transition?
So use a handkerchief, a
millbate bag, or a coffee filter,
pre-filter your water.
Now, step one, we're gonna use iodine.
We're using 10% povidine, iodine,
betadine purification.
Now, this is regular stuff
that you can get in a bottle
from your Walgreens, your
Walmart, your Dollar General,
you know, stuff like that.
Step one is if it's cold and cloudy,
you're gonna add 14 drops
of iodine per liter of water.
So for every liter of water,
you're gonna put 14 drops of iodine.
For clear, warm water,
you're gonna add seven drops.
For example, if I use
clear water from a pond
in my backyard on a warm day
and the water temperature was near 70s,
I would use seven drops.
If the water was from, let's
say, a cold mountain stream
or something to that effect,
and I would use 14 drops, all right?
So let's put that in perspective.
If I was in Alaska drinking
from a creek or a river up there
in, you know, the fall or early spring,
I would put 14 drops per liter in there
after I pre-filtered and
got all the grit and grime
is silt out of my water.
Then step two, you're gonna
shake or stir the container.
You're gonna let it
stand for 15 to 20 minutes.
Then you're gonna be able to drink it.
Now, step three, to
combat the unpleasant taste
of the water treated with iodine,
you can use a vitamin C lozenge,
yeah, you can have one
of those vitamin C tablets
or a drink packet as
mentioned later on in the book.
So kind of like the Wyler's drink packet
or a coffee packet or
something to that effect,
you can use anything to
change the flavor of the water.
All right, so now we
talked about the iodine
and what we've done is
we've purified a liter of water
with 14 drops on a cold day
and seven drops on a hot day.
All right, and that
was with the betadine,
the iodine, betadine, povadine.
So now we're gonna use
regular household bleach.
Now we're gonna go through
and I'm gonna give
you all the stuff here.
Drinking water can be rendered safe
by using unscented
household chlorine bleach.
This will not work with your concentrated
lemon flavored bleach.
It has to be your regular
unscented household bleach.
Now, bleach can kill most
harmful disease causing viruses
and bacteria, but it's not
that effective as boiling
or destroying the germs such as a
karyptosporidium majority.
Water contaminated with other chemicals
can't be disinfected with bleach.
That was actually the
reason why this was in here
is because I did a video on this process
and I had people
actually ask me questions
about the actual
Clorox being able to get rid
of the chemicals that was in there.
Will it neutralize them?
No, it's not gonna do that.
No offense to them.
I mean, people don't
know, they don't know.
But it's not gonna get
rid of your chemicals.
The chemicals is chemicals.
You're not gonna add
chemicals to get rid of chemicals.
It's not gonna happen.
You're gonna have to have
some kind of filtering process
or you're gonna have to bowl it all out
and distill it basically.
So before you purify with bleach,
make sure you're just
like everything else.
Step one, you're gonna
pre-filter your water.
Just use a millbait
bag, use a coffee filter,
use a K-cup, use something,
get the grit and grime and nasty out.
And if you do not have a way to
pre-filter your water,
allow the water to settle
until the sediment has sunk
to the bottom of your container.
And that can be done
and then scoop it out.
How many of you have actually,
y'all watch like Naked or Afraid or Alone
or something to that effect.
And you watch these people
do the Gypsy Whales and stuff,
Coyote Whales, and they
actually let the sediment,
they'll dig these wells
and they'll let it sit
all the sediment had dropped
and then you can just drink
it straight out of that hole.
And you know, my friend Dave,
he sent me a Bible verse the other day,
I believe it was
Genesis, it was in Genesis,
or Exodus, I don't recall, one of those,
and where they had dug water, dug holes
on the side of the Nile River
to try to be able to drink the water.
Same process of filtering the water.
They were trying to do the same thing
through one of the plagues.
And you know, that
was pretty cool to see.
I'll leave the comments in
here for that in the show notes.
So use unscented
household liquid chlorine bleach.
That is a, it'll have a
five to nine percent sodium
hypochlorite concentration.
Do not use scented or do
not use concentrated bleach
on this method, it's not gonna work.
These concentrations are
most common in the United States
and may differ when
you're in another country.
So right here, we're
on page 121 of the book.
If you have the book and
you're following along.
So the concentration calculations of this
with the bleach, all right.
So for five to nine percent,
you're gonna use, for one liter of water,
you're gonna add two drops of bleach.
For one gallon of water,
you're gonna add eight drops of bleach.
For five gallons of water,
you're gonna add 40 drops of bleach.
So now, if you are, for
concentrations of bleach
typically found
outside of the United States,
that use one percent, you're
gonna use 10 drops per liter,
40 drops per gallon, 200
drops per five gallons.
So once again, if the water is cloudy,
colored or very cold,
double the amounts of
bleach listed above.
Stir or shake the container well
and let sit for 30
minutes before drinking.
Now, there is a way to,
once you got your water
all rendered safe to drink,
you got it all purified.
There is a way to get
rid of the chlorine taste.
The very hyperchlorinated water
is going to have a taste to it
and it's gonna taste,
everybody's been
swimming in a swimming pool,
they know that taste of chlorine.
That's the same thing, same concept.
So this chlorine is,
you just open the lid
and the chlorine stuff will
evaporate out of the container.
And that's it.
So, this one, this
chemical disinfection today
is not very complicated stuff.
I'm sure there's
other chemicals out there.
And I just saw one on a video,
I think Battle Box, what's the fellow?
I forget his name with the
long beard from Battle Box,
but he does a video
where he demonstrates
putting nasty, nasty water
out of a mud puddle
in a clear plastic bag.
He has these chemicals to it
and then all the nasty,
all the sediment, turbidity, everything,
the nastiness of that
water just drops to the bottom
and you clip it off and dump that out
and you're left with
clean, drinkable water.
It somehow disinfects that water.
And I don't know, was it Taren 1776 or
whatever his name is?
The guy from Battle Box,
just type in Battle Box, dude,
in TikTok or Facebook
or YouTube or whatever.
This guy does,
demonstrates all these products
that they sell through Battle Box,
which is a subscription service.
And I ain't paid by them or
anything like that to mention.
I just thought that this was pretty cool.
It was a pretty cool
little thing from them.
And yeah, I think his name is Taren 1776
or something like
that, something like that,
I don't recall.
But anyway, there's other chemical
processes out there.
There's other chemical
disinfectants out there
that you can use.
And I just think it's pretty cool
that you could use chemical disinfectants
to actually render
your water safe to drink.
Now, I'm gonna go back
straight back to square one.
I am not the chemical guy.
I've actually had these in my backpack
in case of emergency
for a very long time.
This is the same packet
that you saw in the book
that I took a picture of.
These right here on page 118.
This packet in my hand is
the same packet right here.
So I've had this for over two years.
And it has always been in my bag
just in case in the event of.
And I think it's pretty good idea
to have something in the event of.
Now there's other ways to
decontaminate your water
that I didn't cover here in the book.
And I just went through just
a couple of the little common
items that you can
get from a dollar store,
from a grocery store,
from Walmart or one of those.
And that's why I put
those two items in here.
So it's still bad.
I'm not going to try to throw the
chemicals all in my body
when I don't have to.
So, but last week we went through the
pre-filtering process
and then I did a
couple of videos on YouTube
to show you exactly how to use that,
the millbait bag, the
coffee filters, the K-cups,
the handkerchief, stuff like that.
Everything that we talked about,
that video went hand in hand with laugh,
laugh, laugh, wait, laugh at.
That stuff went hand in
hand with last week's podcast.
What is up with me today, dude?
(laughing) That's crazy.
So, but now we're going to go over
natural filtration systems
next and the next one.
And then that's going to cover a couple.
And then we'll be in the
commercial filtration systems.
And after that, we're going
to be into the fire section.
Once I finish up this water section,
I'm going to have a
couple special guests come on.
I got an individual over in Georgia
that's going to be on here.
And we're going to talk about a product
that we just launched together.
And as these dudes right here,
we got the actual
Primitive Campin' Blend Coffee,
how bushcraft tastes.
And this stuff is very good.
And he approached me and asked me
if I would be willing to
launch my own line of coffee.
And I did.
And here it is.
It is, we got the ground.
It comes in cups.
It comes in ground.
It comes in coarse ground,
all the different kinds of grounds.
And then it also comes in whole beans.
But we got the little cups here.
For the time being,
they're real generic cups.
They don't have my label or
logo on the top right yet.
Because that is,
we wanted to make sure that
sales were doing pretty good
before we did anything like that.
Because it's super duper expensive
to get the labels done like that.
But still, I ain't giving it a shot.
It's $8 for six
ounces, something like that.
You get put on a subscription service.
And this is, I think
this is a 12 ounce bag.
Yeah, this is a 12 ounce bag.
And dude, it smells so
good and it tastes great.
And if you're a coffee drinker like I am,
you're absolutely
gonna love it, I promise.
And it is something that you need
when you get out into the woods
and you could brew it
with a French press,
you can brew it, whatever.
How you normally brew your
coffee out in the great outdoors,
you could take this with
you and do the same thing.
So give it a shot, give it a try.
Let me know what you think about it.
Leave me a comment.
Let me know what you think.
Whenever you get yourself a bag
or get yourself some pods or whatnot,
fire them off and then let me a comment.
And head on over to the Facebook group
or YouTube page or whatever and fire off.
So, but anyway, all
right, that's it for this one.
And next time, like I said,
we'll start going in
natural filtration systems.
And then such as a tripod, water filters,
water wells and stuff like that.
Hope you enjoyed it.
I'll see you next time.
God bless you.
(upbeat music)