In this episode of the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft Podcast, host Chris Speir delves into pre-filtering water while exploring the practical use of tools like handkerchiefs, Millbank bags, and commercial filters. Alongside sharing personal stories and tips from his book, Chris emphasizes the importance of preparing for clean water in the outdoors, making it an essential listen for camping enthusiasts.
Welcome back to the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft Podcast! In this episode, we explore the vital topic of pre-filtering your water to ensure a safe and enjoyable outdoor experience. Host Chris Speir shares his personal experiences, practical tips, and highlights from his book, Primitive Camping & Bushcraft.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Chris also teases future episodes on chemical disinfection and shares exciting details about his upcoming lightweight squirrel hunting trip. Don’t miss his practical gear recommendations and a special shoutout to listeners who make this podcast possible.
Links & Resources Mentioned:
HTTP://www.campcraftoutdoors.com
Thank you for tuning in! Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with fellow outdoor enthusiasts.
(upbeat music)
Welcome back to the Primitive
Camping & Bushcraft Podcast.
My name's Chris Speir
and I'm gonna be your guide
to enjoying the great outdoors.
So we're in the water,
we're in the second section
of the water section of the book,
and this is gonna be
called Pre-Filtering Your Water.
And it seems to go hand in
hand with everything else
what we've been doing.
But anyway, we're getting
into the holiday season,
coming up on Thanksgiving and Christmas
and all that good stuff.
And the most wonderful time
of the year is the songs go.
And in reality, it's
the same way with me.
I really enjoy this time of the year.
It is hunting seasons,
camping seasons, all of that.
And it is a real good
time for you to start really
getting into the great outdoors.
It's not as hot, it's
cooler, it is, you know,
some places has already
got snow on the ground.
So not here in South Mississippi,
it's finally cooling off a
little bit and not by much.
It's middle of
November, I think we've been,
57 is the lowest it's been.
But anyway, pre-filtering your water.
So when you head out into the woods,
you want a way to filter your water.
And I've said several times and
throughout this book,
throughout this whole
program that, you know,
one of the most important
things that you can take
with you into the woods is a metal
container of some sort.
If you're watching the video, I am
showing a metal container.
This is a 25 ounce
Pathfinder cup, I believe it is.
And it's got the
handles on the side of it.
It's got a lid right here.
You can pull that lid off
and then you can fill this dude
up with some water and you can boil it.
Now, this little container is awesome
and you can do a lot with it.
You could dig holes with it.
You can cook food with it.
You could boil water with it.
You can, you know,
drink your water out of it.
You can eat your food out of it.
You know, it's a lot of stuff can happen
with that little metal container.
So when I was a kid,
my brother and I would,
when we went camping,
we'd go extra minimalistic
and we'd only carry
one pound of dry beans.
And, you know, we'd have a
number 10 can for cooking.
And this would be like a
four day trip or whatever.
And a number 10 can is
those giant cans that you get
of like green beans or
tomato sauce or whatever.
It's not highly recommended
to cook out of those anymore
because they line it with plastic.
But we did anyway, and
we didn't bring any water.
And the only thing we had
was a nifty water filter.
So this was, I can't really say kid.
We were adults, but we
get out into the woods
with this little thing, our
mom had given us a water pump
for our, for Christmas.
And it was one of those
little military style pumps.
You know, you had to pump that thing up
and we get out there and
we pumped up some water
and it clogged up on the
first time we got to use it.
You know, the water source
that we were pumping it out of
had flooded and the water was so silty,
had so much turbidity
in it, it was ridiculous.
And it literally clogged
the, it clogged up the pump.
And so that right
there started helping us
realize that you have to have a way to
pre-filter your water
to get the turbidity
of sand, grit, nasty,
all the excess stuff out of it.
And so, you know, in my
research and my studies
and learning the processes
here, there are several things
that we're gonna go over today.
If you're not watching the video,
you're listening to this
episode online on a podcast.
You know, I'm gonna demonstrate
everything that you see
or what you would see if
you was watching the video
here on YouTube.
So first up, you know, one
of the most important things
to have with you
besides a metal container
when you go into the great outdoors is,
like I have in my hand, a handkerchief.
This one's bright orange.
There's a reason it's bright orange.
It can act as signaling.
You can signal for help with it.
But most importantly,
you could double it over
or triple it over however you
wish, fold it over like this.
And you could take this handkerchief,
place it inside this metal container,
and you could pour water into it
and it will filter all the grit and grime
and nasty out of your water.
And then your water
would be turbidity free
or grit free or grime free or whatever.
Now, that is one of the
methods that you would use.
It has
multi-purposes, just like we stated.
It is fluorescent orange.
So you can see it from a long distance.
You can use it to wave things down.
You can use this to
create a water filter.
You can use this to bathe with.
You can use this to
filter your water with.
Now, I wouldn't go
scrubbing your backside
and then go filter your water.
I mean, you're gonna
boil your water anyway,
but that's just nasty.
Who's gonna drink bathwater?
Think about it that way.
Who is gonna drink bathwater?
Not me, said the goose.
So, but anyway, the
handkerchief is a multi-purpose item
that people really don't think about.
And people's like, hey,
I'm not gonna bring one.
I don't need one of those.
But really and truthfully, a handkerchief
is a very important
tool to bring with you
when you go into the woods.
They're extremely lightweight.
It's negligible on the weight,
but it is extremely lightweight
and very valuable when
you get into the woods.
And I typically have
three in my pack somewhere,
for some reason, I'll use them.
I use them for like if
you put this metal container
onto a fire and it's hot,
I'll hold onto it like that.
Oops, I keep hitting this microphone.
(laughing) But anyway, you can
hold onto it like that.
So it has multifunctionality.
It is extremely multifunctional
and it's just a piece of cloth.
It's just a bandana.
It's just a, you
know, what do you call it?
A durag, a bandana, handkerchief,
whatever you wanna call it.
Well, it depends on where you're from.
But anyway, that dude
right there is amazing.
It's an amazing little tool.
Now, being that we've gone over that,
there is a couple of other
little items that you could use
and you can follow along in the book.
We're going by the book.
So I use this right here in my hands.
I have the Grell Dual Press Water Filter.
This Grell is the most
amazing water filtration system
that you will ever use when
you go into the great outdoors.
Grell has designed a system
to where you could fill up the outer cup
with 24 ounces of disgusting,
nasty sewer water, if you wish,
and you can filter it out and drink it
no matter where you're at
on earth, no matter what.
It will not work with seawater.
It only works with fresh water,
contaminated and nasty with fresh water.
But it gets out all the
chemical contaminants.
It gets out all the heavy metals.
It gets out all the
biologicals, all the viruses,
you know, the cysts, the
protozoa, the bacterias,
and the viruses and all that good stuff.
It's disgusting stuff
that otherwise you would
have to boil your water.
I have this with me every
time I go into the woods.
If I go into the woods
hunting, I have this with me.
If I go into the woods
backpacking, I have this with me.
If I go camping, it's with me.
If I go boat riding, it's with me.
I take this with me everywhere I go.
The Grell Dual Press,
I cannot explain to you
how important it is to have
fresh, clean water easily.
Now, these things are finite as well.
They have a filtration cartridge, a
filter cartridge in there.
This is a filter cartridge in my hands
that fits onto the bottom of,
or the inside of this Grell GeoPress.
These filters are like 24 to $30.
It depends, you can get them on sale.
You can replace them.
It's good for 250 presses or 65 gallons
or 300 something liters.
Now, these little filters are finite.
They will clog up.
The more, if you don't remove the
turbidity out of it,
it will clog up your water system.
So, let me show you what we
would do, what we would use.
We could use the bandana, like I
discussed previously.
We got this bandana
right here in my hand.
Or you can use a little
item called a mill bank bag.
If you're watching on the
video, the mill bank bag,
it kind of looks like
a Christmas stocking.
It's my favorite time of
the year anyway, right?
It's gonna look like
a Christmas stocking.
And all this is made out of
is some very tightly woven canvas
and a very tightly sewn canvas.
And you soak this bag
into the dirty water
that you're going to be filtering
until it is completely saturated.
What that's gonna do is
kind of activate the canvas.
It's gonna activate the filter media,
basically expand it to where
it'll let the water through,
but it captures all the grit, grime,
and nasty out of your water.
And so, this one here holds, I don't
know, a couple liters.
And you'll hold it up,
tie it onto a branch,
and then fill this little stocking up
with your nasty water
and then let it drip
into whatever container
that you want to use to
collect your water with.
You're still going to either
use this to filter or boil.
You still have to boil your water.
You still have to run it
through your commercial filter.
Now, later on in this chapter,
we're gonna get into
the commercial filters.
We'll get into that in a couple weeks.
But right now, like I
stated, the Grail GeoPress
is the one that I choose to
tape with me everywhere I go.
It has never let me down,
it has never clogged up.
I have always had water
even on multiple day trips.
But let me show you
something that a friend of mine,
Dave and I, just recently acquired
for our Grail GeoPresses.
And this is a Milbaint bag specifically
for the Grail GeoPress.
The actual container or the actual filter
fits down in the bag
itself, just like this.
If you're watching.
So it fits down inside the bag.
And what I have done,
there's a little D-ring loop on the side.
I've put a carabiner on there.
And on the actual filter itself,
I will carabiner the bag to it.
So that way it's not coming off
and it's not gonna get lost.
So you have to have
the bag with the filter.
Now, let's discuss what this is gonna do.
So we will pull the filter out of here,
fill up the cup with 24 ounces of water.
And we will pour it in this bag
and then put it, hang it up
and collect that water
back into the dirty cup.
That is gonna get rid of
the sand, the grit, the grime,
all the tea stain, all
the nasty, just gritty stuff
that is going to clog up your filter.
And that's what that's gonna do.
So we're gonna put this up, hang this up,
fill the water up with it,
put this cup back up under here
and then we're going, underneath my hand.
What was that?
But anyway, we're gonna put
the cup back underneath here
and let this water drip back down into it
and it's gonna be clean.
And then we'll use the filter and filter
and that'll save on the
life of our cartridge.
You gotta remember our cartridge is only
good for 250 pounds,
250 gallons or 250
presses, I mean, and 65 gallons.
So, what you wanna do
with these Milbaint bags,
I got it listed right
here on page 114 of the book,
is you wanna soak the bag
in water for a few minutes
to allow the canvas fibers to expand,
creating a fantastic
water filtration system.
Then step two is fill it with water
and then hang it from a tree.
The water's gonna seep through the canvas
and drip down to the
lowest corner of the bag.
Now step three is
place the metal container
or your water container
from your Grille GeoPress,
depending on what you're using,
and place that underneath
the bag to collect the water.
Then if you're using a metal container,
you wanna boil the water.
And then if you're using
a commercial water filter,
at that point, you can go ahead
and filtrate the water for drinking.
And that will actually
give you some crystal clear,
100% drinkable water in the nasty woods,
in the nasty water environment.
In South Mississippi,
all the rivers are muddy,
tea stained and just
dirty, real dirty, real gritty.
And I have no problem with
my water filtration system,
when I use it in
conjunction with a millbait bag
or the simplest of simples, the bandana.
A handkerchief bandana is the
simplest way to do anything.
It does the same thing
as the millbait bags.
Now it's probably not as effective
because you can see through
some of this a little bit.
And you can, you know,
but still it's gonna
collect more than nothing.
And whenever you double
it over, triple it over,
and you put that dude
inside your metal container,
it is going to actually
filtrate your water for you.
So that's a plus right there.
So, but moving right along,
there's one more, couple more
items here I wanna show you.
And, you know,
everybody, including myself,
I can't say everybody,
the majority of people, including myself,
absolutely love coffee.
Coffee is amazing stuff, you know.
I know there's a lot of people
that they're not even
gonna get up and go to work
unless they've had
their coffee, you know,
or they can't have, let work start
until they've had so many
cups of coffee, you know,
but a standard paper coffee filter
can pre-filter your water,
just like a
handkerchief or a mail-bait bag.
The only issue with the coffee filter
is that once it becomes wet,
it's hard to manipulate without having
some kind of apparatus
to keep its form.
So unless you have these.
Now, in my fingers, I have,
you know what Rush Limbaugh used to say?
In my formerly
nicotine-stained hands, I have,
and I used to listen to
him when I went to work,
but anyway.
So what I have here is
the paper coffee filter,
and these are in the shape of a filter,
like a, you know,
round, kind of like a funnel,
and these little dudes right
here open up your container.
If you're watching on the video,
you can see what's going on,
and you stick the water filter,
or the coffee filter,
into the metal container,
and then you can pour
your water in there,
and then that will keep your water,
keep all the grit and grime
out of your drinking water,
and it will help you to,
if you're gonna use a
commercial water filter,
it would actually save on your filter.
You can use a sawyer or a life straw.
I recommend, you know,
it looks kind of silly,
but filling up your metal cup,
like this little cup I
got right here in my hand,
you fill this cup up,
and then you filter it
with some kind of apparatus,
such as be a mill bank bag,
or a handkerchief, or a
coffee filter, or whatnot,
but you fill this cup up,
and then use your life straw
to suck it out of that cup.
All right, now that is just
to save on your life straw,
because eventually, our
life straws are cheap,
life straws are finite, they're,
what's the word I'm looking for on this?
They are extremely
replaceable, they are replaceable,
and that's the word I was
looking for, is replaceable,
and you know, once they clog up,
you can easily obtain a new one
at a lot of department stores,
at a lot of sporting
goods stores, stuff like that,
so they have them now all over the place,
and if they don't have
the life straw brand,
there is different
brands that you can get,
but these filters right here,
and it's weird because I thought it said
four coffee filters,
but there's 40 of them in this box,
and you know, I got the
box for like 90 cents,
somewhere, 99 cents at the salvage store,
yep, 99 cents for a 40 count of filters,
the only place I would
use them is in the woods,
I'm not gonna use them here at home, so,
but anyway, the water filter, the
standard coffee filter,
is the way to go.
Now, staying on the
tradition of coffee here,
or the concept of coffee,
(laughs)
I touched on this in the book,
and I spoke of it in
several videos I've done,
using the K-Cup filter,
the reusable K-Cup filter
in the woods, you
take this little filter,
and that's what I have
here in my hands right now,
you open this up, you
put it inside your cup,
or whatever, and you
pour your water through it,
and it will actually
filtrate all the grit and grime
out of your water.
Now, it may let some stuff pass,
depending on how fine that mesh is,
but what I understand,
and what I've used and seen,
is that there's not
gonna be a lot of grit,
it will capture the
majority of all the sand,
and you're not gonna have
much grit in your drink,
and so it's not gonna
really clog up any water filters
or anything like that.
But experiment, you know,
experiment with different types
of coffee filters, water containers,
and find a good combination.
You could make some kind of way to
pre-filter your water
before you, even if you
sewed together a handkerchief,
some way to pre-filter your water
before you got into the great outdoors.
It don't have to be
any of these suggestions.
I suggest that it is,
but you can make your own,
you can make your own,
and that's the whole premise
of this book, is that you don't have to,
you're not confined to
somebody else's opinion.
You're not confined to,
to, quote unquote, survivalists' ideals.
And, you know, all the
stuff that people have written
throughout the years is, one, their
experiences in the woods,
their experiences in the great outdoors,
and two, you know,
their thoughts, you know,
their ideas, their theories.
And that's basically what
bushcraft and survival is.
You have an experience, and you're
applying your experience
to a certain theory or
a certain way, you know?
And then you go out and
test it, and then you're like,
"Hey, that works, so
let me show everybody."
And that's what it is, and
that's what it comes out to.
But there's no right way,
there's absolutely no wrong way
to enjoy the great outdoors.
You can go enjoy the great outdoors
any way that you want to.
Now, some people will argue
with you and differ with you,
but practice doing
things that, off of nature,
how, if you were in the great outdoors,
and you needed to get
the grit and the grime
out of your water, how would you do it?
Survival books
demonstrate the tripod water filter,
and I have demonstrated
the tripod water filter
time and time again on
videos, and it works.
It really does work, but that's
pre-filtering your water,
and it's getting the grit,
the grime, and the nasty out.
The tripod water filter is not going to
make your water safe to drink.
You know, Clay Hayes just did a video,
and I think I discussed it last time,
but left links in his video in there.
But the old sand,
charcoal, and grass technique
is actually still
leaving tons enough of E. coli
in the water for you to get sick.
And, you know, for you
to get sick off of these
water sources is, you
know, like cryptosporidium,
or beaver fever, it's
not gonna hit you that day.
It's not gonna hit you the next day.
It's gonna hit you
several days down the road
when you think nothing's wrong.
And so you're gonna be, you
drink out of a questionable
source, and then, you
know, four or five days later,
you get sick as a dog,
and you start vomiting,
throwing up, vomiting,
throwing up, and you end up
dehydrated, because you
can't drink enough water.
And, you know, that's
for a miserable time.
And when you're out into
the great outdoors, it's bad.
Dehydration can lead to
arrhythmias, hard arrhythmias,
stuff like that.
And if you're prone to go into AFib,
I don't recommend that, like I am.
I'll go into AFib for
no reason, you know,
and I can't help it.
It is what it is, and, you
know, but I'm just, whatever.
It is what it is.
If I go into AFib, I
just get out of the woods,
and I go to the hospital, you know.
That has not happened to me yet.
I have had AFib once,
but I was fortunate enough
not to be in the woods
whenever that happened.
So, but anyway, find a
way that works for you
to filter your water.
And my recommendation at a minimum
is bring a handkerchief with you.
It is extremely
lightweight, it's very negligible
as far as the weight goes, and you can
put it in your pocket,
you can put it in your backpack,
you can put it in your fire kit,
you can put it wherever you want it.
I mean, that's not hard to do.
You can stuff it in this cup
if you have nothing else in that cup
to take with you into the woods.
Now, another item that I
highly, highly, highly recommend,
and, you know, if you're going to have
a Grail GeoPress with you,
then I do recommend
having a millbait bag.
And I'll try to leave a
link in the description
of this video and
podcast in the show notes,
but this is from Camp Craft Outdoors,
and I found this on their website,
and I searched and
searched, I was gonna make one.
I was gonna make one just for this,
just for this water filter.
And I ran across their site,
and I was like for 15 or 16 bucks,
I can't remember exactly how much it was.
My friend Dave, he picked up
two of them and gave me one,
but I was gonna make them, you know,
he picked them up and now we got these,
and we got a trip coming up this week.
Gonna be kayaking down the
river again on a squirrel hunt.
But the last time we
went, I brought my GeoPress,
and he absolutely fell in love with it,
and he has a GeoPress now,
and so we're gonna be
heading down the river
and drinking from the GeoPress,
and, you know, we're gonna be using our
little millbait bag,
so I'm gonna be filming videos
on how to use the
millbait bag with the GeoPress,
and then, you know, going from there.
But the millbait bag
is a remarkable tool.
All these are are just tools.
In the end, you can get away without it.
You can get away without
having any of these things.
But it is nicer to be able to
not have grit in your water,
and every time you
bite down or planche down,
you have grit breaking in your mouth.
So, you know, there's
also chemical disinfection,
and that's gonna be an entire episode
next week on its own.
So, but anyway, you
know, we touched on today,
we touched on having a metal container,
which, you know, if
you're starting to realize
how many times have I
said it is important
to have a metal container with you
when you go into the grayed out doors.
A lot, a lot, you know, not just for
survival or bush grab,
but just primitive camping.
When you go in primitive camping,
take a metal container with you.
My setup for this weekend's campout trip,
I'm bringing a metal container.
I'm bringing this right
here with the GeoPress.
I'm bringing my Grel
GeoPress with the millbait bag.
Let's see, I'm bringing a tarp.
I'm bringing a sleeping mat,
and then some food
and a change of clothes.
And I believe that's it,
that's all I'm bringing on this trip.
Shotgun and some shotgun shells,
cause we're going squirrel hunting.
But other than that, that's all I'm
bringing on this trip.
And it's gonna be a
very lightweight trip.
I might even bring a camera.
I don't know.
I typically spend a lot of
time filming and not enjoying,
and this time I'm going
to enjoy and not film.
So if anything, I have a
camera on my cell phone,
and I have a camera on
my, I'll bring my GoPro,
and you know, for stuff like that.
But anyway, we're gonna film,
I'm gonna film the how
to filter your water.
You know, I forgot I was gonna do that.
So I am gonna film, but all right.
Well, that's it for today's episode.
I really do appreciate
everyone that stopped by.
And I really do appreciate the support
that I'm getting from you guys,
and all the comments that I'm getting.
And you know, it
just, it blesses my heart
to know that people
out there are interested
in something that I have to say.
And I just want to say thank you
from the bottom of my heart.
God bless you, I
really do appreciate you.
And right now coming up to Black Friday,
I'm telling you, go
out to Amazon right now.
That's $14.40 for a copy
of the primitive camping
in Bushcraft.
And then also, I think they have a sale
on the grill geo press.
Check out my Amazon influencer page.
It is amazon.com slash
shop slash spear outdoors,
or just typing in spear
outdoors on the Amazon page.
I'll leave a link in
the description here.
And I've got lists of
things to get from there,
you know, camping, survival Bushcraft,
how to make a first aid
kit, you know, stuff like that.
And items to put in that
first aid kit from sutures
all the way up to Livmour.
And then for camping,
I got like, you know,
water filtration
systems, and tents and hammocks
and blankets, you know, all
the stuff that I could carry
with me in the backpack
and go out into the woods
and stay for weeks at a time.
And now here, enjoy, make
it a very enjoyable trip.
So, all right guys, thank
you so much for joining me.
I really appreciate your support.
I'll see you in the next
video and in the next podcast.
God bless you.
(upbeat music)