In this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris Speir dives into the essentials of water filtration and purification for safe outdoor survival. Learn about various gear options, from gravity-fed systems to personal filters, and discover how to ensure your water is always clean and drinkable during your outdoor adventures.
Welcome back to the Premier of Camping
and Bushcraft Podcast. My name is Chris
Speir and I'm going to be your guide to
enjoying the great outdoors.
So water is everywhere. It's what 70% of
the world is covered in water and you
know a lot of it's not drinkable.
But you know one of the things that you
have to have with you is the ability to
clean your water, to purify your water,
to make your water drinkable.
So today that's what this is all about.
We're going to talk about water and we're
still in the gear section of the book
"Premitive Camping and Bushcraft"
You know and we're going to be going over
this book. We're on page 66 here. We're
talking about water. We're
talking about purifying water.
And then this is going to go greater into
detail later on in the book where we
break it down and we really dive real
deep into the water section.
So this is part of the gear and how to
select the right stuff for your backpack
or for your gear bag whenever you're
heading out into the woods.
So as mentioned before, before we do a
deep dive into water on page 100, let's
explore some gear options that you can
use to obtain clean drinking water.
And I just recently returned from a two
day overnight, this one night, two days
kayaking trip where we went 18 to 20
miles, something like that down the river
and one of the wilderness areas here.
And it was a great trip. The only
difference is that it wasn't in the fall
or the spring where it was really
enjoyable because it was hot.
I mean, let me tell you, it was the
middle of August that it was just it was
hot. If you haven't seen that video, just
head on over to
YouTube and check that out.
But it was a great kayaking trip. But
during that trip, we, you know, you're
surrounded by all this creek water and
we're in South Mississippi.
So we get the rest of the country stuff
that comes down all the way down here. So
all the pollutants, all the chemicals,
all the whatever, you know, all the water
down here is just like
it's sandy, it's gritty.
It's nasty. And you're going to want a
way to purify this water. You're going to
want a way to make this water drinkable.
And so that's what today is all about.
I'm going to go over a bunch of different
gear options here. I've got stuff laid
out on the table. So for those of you
that are actually watching the video,
watching this podcast, you're going to be
able to see the
various options that I have.
And for those of you that are listening,
I will try with my deep Southern accent
to explain my best, a very vivid
description of each item.
So without further ado, you know, there's
hundreds of ways to collect,
filter and purify your water.
But it's very important to note that
filtering and purifying are not the same
process. People get confused on that and
they believe that, oh, I just filtered my
water and it's safe to drink.
That's not the case. Filtering your water
is not the same as purifying your water
in order for you to drink it.
And so filtering removes the debris and
the contaminants, whereas purifying makes
your water biologically safe to consume.
All right. So let's break that down. Now,
if you have a metal container, which we
just spoke about in one of our previous
episodes here, we talked about metal
containers, how they are extremely
important, how they
should be in everyone's bag.
Everyone should have a metal container
when you head out into the woods and a
fire starting device.
You know, there is, I think I'm going to
break it down and do like a minimum
basics podcast, like something to take
with you when you go deer hunting,
scouting, you know, stuff like that.
We're going to be miles away or whatever.
Some minimum basic
minimalist kit that you can bring.
But that's neither here nor there. That's
future down the road. And I'm going to do
a video on that as well.
But what I'm saying is that I'm thinking
that people don't really understand the
difference between
filtering and purification.
Filtering, if you brought your metal
container and you fill it up with water,
you're going to want some kind of media,
some kind of something such as a shimak,
a bandana, you know, a
handkerchief, a hanky.
Some kind of something, a sock. You can
actually use a sock. I've
seen that used before as well.
But that's going to be kind of nasty. I
don't want my water to taste like toe
cheese, you know what I'm saying?
I mean, it could probably add a little
cheesy flavor to it. But the simplest way
to filter your water is with an ordinary
handkerchief, you know, or shimak, a
tactical military scarf.
Now, once you filter your water, you put
this scarf on there and you put this
handkerchief on there and
you just fill it up with water.
All you're getting out is the sand and
debris. And I've done several videos on
my social pages where I've even taken a
filter from a Keurig coffee.
You know, one of those reusable filters,
they have a very, very, very small screen
and they're perfect for getting out
debris and sand and grit and grime and,
you know, tadpoles and all the extra
protein that you don't
really want in there.
All the tadpoles ain't going to really
hurt. But they're easy. It's easy to pour
the water in there, you know, if you
don't have something such as a shimak.
But I'm telling you right now, if you're
heading out into the woods, you need to
have some kind of handkerchief or a
shimak or some kind of something to be
able to filter your water.
Now, when you're filtering it, once you
did this, all you're doing is getting the
grit, the grime and some of
the nasty out of the water.
And you're making it to where it's like
less gritty when you drink it. All right.
Now, all water is going to have some
degree of turbidity. When you go up
north, the water is like a real bluish
color. A lot of that is minerals that
wash out of rocks and, you know, the
banks and stuff like that.
That, you know, it's still going to have
sand or grit in the water. When you come
down here, you got tea stained water that
where all the leaves from the trees die
and they fall into the water
and it just turns tea stained.
And it's from decomposing leaves. It is
from decomposition. And so it's the same
process whenever you put tea or coffee
into a coffee pot and you add warm water
to it, it, it tea stains the water and
you get all the nutrients and the
vitamins and minerals out of that water.
So it's the same process, you know, it's
the same exact thing. But what we're
doing is we're filtering this water out
and we're getting the grit and the grime
and the nasty out of the water.
So, you know, once you get that done,
then it's time to you could boil your
water or you can use some other apparatus
to make your water safe to drink.
And since we're talking about the gear
section, let's go ahead and take this
time now to talk about, you know, some of
the items that you can bring with you
into your woods, you're camping, you
know, your backcountry, your treks, you
know, your hiking treks or whatever.
You know, when you're out in the great
outdoors, you're going to have one of
these various types of items with you and
we'll talk about them.
So right here, first up, we have the
LifeStraw variant. There's different name
brands, different things. They're all do
the same thing. They filter your water.
They have some kind of filter in there,
whether it be carbon that absorbs some of
the nasty taste from the decomposing
leaves and animals and,
you know, stuff like that.
Now, there will be some dead animals in
the water and flowing downstream. You
will actually get some of that in your
water. So that's part of the reason why
you have to make this drinkable.
I mean, you have to render it safe to
drink because, you know, there is going
to be dead animals. There's going to be
bacteria and all that from those dead
animals. There's going to be stuff in
there that can make you sick.
So that's one of the reasons why you do
it. Now, these items right here, these
little straw type filters, this is the
WaterDrop straw filter and this is the
Membrane Solutions straw filter.
And these items, this one's got some
water and it's dripping all over my table
because I used it last. But these items
right here are great for filtering large
quantities of water on the go.
These are perfect for having one in your
pocket or in your side bag or something
like that. Your, you know, your little
satchel or Haver Sack or
whatever you want to call it.
You know, those are going to be awesome
to have on your person when you're
heading out into the woods because you
can just kneel down, drink straight out
of the whatever and go for it.
Now, I don't recommend drinking out of
straight out of a mud puddle or a nasty
creek or anything like that because the
stuff in there will clog
up the filters in here.
And I have a story I'm going to tell you
here shortly towards the end about that
happening and how we remedied that
situation. And I also covered
that in the book to an extent.
Now these filters are great. Now some of
these filters, they hook up, they double.
You know, you can use one as your little
straw. You can carry it around in your
pocket. You can bend
down. You can drink out of it.
Or you can also on the fly use it with a
gravity filtration bag. Now these bags
right here, six ounces. What's this one?
Six liters. I'm sorry.
So this is one and a half gallons of
water. You're able to process one and a
half gallons of dirty water. Now you can
fill this bag up. There's
a hose that connects to it.
Excuse me. There's a Lord help me. I got
something going on in my throat. All
right. So there's a bag. There's a hose
that hooks up to it and it filters down
to a collection, some
kind of collection bag.
Or you could put this filter on in and
drink straight from the bag. Save it,
pinch it off, save it for later. But what
I like to tend to do is bring a gallon to
a gallon and a half bag with me. Oops.
And then connect the filter to that and
let it fill that bag up. That way I have
an entire bag of cleaned water that is
ready to drink, ready to go.
So, you know, these things double as a
personal straw where you can personally
drink out of it. And then it also works
as a gravity filtration system to where
you can even put it in line on one of
those camelbacks or
whatever they call it.
You know, those hydration bladders that
you put in your backpack and then you
could put these in line to where you can
drink dirty water straight from the
bladder and it be filtered through one of
these filter systems
while you're drinking it.
And so it's like 100% real time water
filtration. And there's nothing wrong
with that. And those things are great and
they really do a very good job.
Now, we showed you the bladder here. So
what that was was a one and a half gallon
bag that you could just fill up. And with
this bag, it kind of looks like a dry bag
for those of you that
are not watching the video.
This is a dry bag, essentially with an
attachment at the bottom to
where you could put the...
There is a hose that clips in there and
it's got an O-ring on that hose to keep
water from dripping out. And it's kind of
like it reminds me of the water hose that
connects from the wall to your
refrigerator for your
drinking water to your refrigerator.
And so matter of fact, whenever I was
trying to make one longer, that is the
actual hose that I used. I went to Home
Depot and I got the hose. I think I got
20 something feet of hose.
And I hung this dude. The higher you hang
these things, this bag up, the faster
your water is going to filtrate out of
this bag. So I got one of those hoses and
put it on there and I made my
own gravity filtration system.
Now, moving right along, we have one of
the very common soya squeezes here. Now,
this soya is a great product. I think it
does like 100,000 gallons, I'm pretty
sure. It does 100,000 gallons.
But these, it comes with these little
bags. You fill them up with your dirty
water and then you just put your filter
system on there and you can just roll it
and drink it straight through and
straight out of that bag.
And that will remove any kind of debris,
any sediment, any kind of everything. And
it's also, I believe, has charcoal in
there, which causes you to
remove some of the funky taste.
And I found that whenever anything
charcoal touches the water, it makes the
water taste almondy, like nutty, like a
slight nutty taste to it. And I'm not
talking about me being a nut.
But, and so one of the other options that
I like to use a lot, and you see this a
lot in some of my videos, is the Grail
Geopress. Now, the grails are amazing.
I just did another item for another
platform. And I don't know if y'all ever
heard of Flip. Flip is where you is, is
where content creators come.
They order their products and then they
make videos on their products and they do
a lot of UGC or user generated content
and they get paid
commissions and stuff like that.
So I started doing that and they send you
some of the products with like 30% off
stuff like that. So it's a pretty good
little deal. But I got another Grail
Geopress right there
ready to go in the package.
So I've been using this Grail Geopress
for years. And let's see, three years
now, I believe. I believe three, maybe
four years I've been using these.
At first it would kind of put me off
because it was just a drinking bottle. It
looks kind of like a sports bottle, a
plastic sports bottle. Now, they do make
them now where they're
made out of titanium.
So we're in the event of the filter clogs
up in these and we're going to get to
that filter clogging stuff here shortly.
But if the filter clogs up or the filter
slows down, they have a cup is actually
made out of titanium to where you could
just go ahead and boil your water and
make it drinkable where you
can render it safe right there.
But the whole basis behind the Grail
Geopress is it has a filter on the bottom
and you fill this outer cup up with water
and you fill that dude up and then you
put the filter in the can, you release
this lid to where some air will come out
and then you just press, you push down.
So anywhere between eight and 25 seconds,
something like that, you'll have 24
ounces depending on the model you got.
They got a 16.9 and they got a 24 ounce.
But depending, you know, how well your
filter is, eight to 24 seconds, you're
going to press down and you will have
100% clean drinking
water anywhere in the world.
I mean, you can use this anywhere. You
can use it when you're traveling. You can
use it in foreign countries, you know,
stuff like that. If you don't like
drinking the tap water out of hotels,
bring one of these dudes with you and you
can go ahead and fill the tap water in
there, you know, and it will make it like
it's better than bottled water.
And that's no lie. And my friend Dave and
I went on a trip, kayaking trip. I
brought the bladder where we did the,
where we did the gravity feed. And I did
that at night whenever we got to the camp
to fill up a lot of water
for us for the next day.
But I actually used the grill. I filled
up, he had a liter bottle and I had
another 48 ounce bottle that, a Nalgene
bottle that I filled up and I would use
this grill and I would just fill his
stuff up and then fill mine up and then
fill the grill up again.
And then we had some reserves straight
out of the creek. So I mean, it wasn't
exactly ice cold, but it was a lot cooler
than, you know, what, it was a lot cooler
coming straight out of the creek. You
know, it wasn't like
it was stagnant water.
So, all right. So one of my favorite ways
to filter water is the gravity feed
system, you know, other than like what I
said with the grill. I love the grill. I
love, you know, I love all the, all the
filter systems, you know, the live straws
and stuff like that.
Now, there is a system there. All these
systems can fail and all these systems
will fail. You have to filter your water
before you use one of these commercial
water filters. If you do not, the grit,
the grime, the nasty will
clog these, these filters up.
I mean, there's no doubt about it. They
will get clogged up. So, you know, the
six liter reservoir bag that's filled
with water from your source and then it
runs down this hose into the ceramic
filter. Now, if you didn't like filter
the water going into the bag with a
chamog or a, you know, a handkerchief or
something of the sort, if you did not
filter the grit and grime out, all that
sediment is going to go down.
All that sediment is going to go into
that filter and it will clog that filter
up. And you've seen, you know, we're
sediment and stuff like that. You like,
let's put fine silt into a strainer.
Eventually that strainer is going to clog
up. And one, one way to
show you this is cooking oil.
You fry some fish or, you know, down here
in the South, we fry a lot of foods, but
let's say you fry some fish or you fried
something, you know, and you put the
cornmeal or the flour or the whatever
batter you had on there and you fry it.
That stuff's going to come off. So before
you recycle your grease, you know, we
will, I'll reuse the grease whenever I
fry stuff with it and you will strain it
to get all the sediment and all of them
drippings and stuff, you know, all the
cornmeal and all the other stuff that
burned, you know, that out and just go
back with regular grease, you know. But
as that sediment gets into that strainer,
it will clog that strainer up. And it's
the same concept with the water filter.
The sediment will clog
that filter up. So true story.
My brother and I, we loaded up, got our
bags, you know, loaded my hiking bag out
and we headed off into the great
outdoors. And we walked about five or six
miles in, set up a camp right next to the
creek. And matter of fact, the same one
that we just went kayaking on out in the
Black Creek wilderness.
And we were practicing our survival
skills where we only brought like a pound
of beans and a little bit of dehydrated
stuff. But the rest of the time we were
going to eat off of the land. We was
going to check traps of squirrels or, you
know, squirrel, hunt some squirrels and
then we was going to catch some fish and
then, you know, just find some mushrooms,
stuff like that and eat.
Well, we get out there and we're on our
second day and all of the water is like
we're camping next to this little beaver
pond or this, it's a little slough and
they had otter swimming in it and they
had crawfish all in it. We were
collecting some crawfish
to cook and everything.
But, you know, the water was real black.
The water was black, tea stained black.
It was clear. I don't know how to explain
it, but you could not see deep because
the water was black. You know, it was
very tea stained. But what threw me off
was seeing all the otters. There was tons
of otter swimming in this.
Well, that's what gets me is that that's
the perfect recipe for beaver fever right
there is getting you some Giardia and by
drinking water out of there that's not
processed. You know, we saw some
alligators in there. Alligators are in
any kind of waters like that here in
South Mississippi. We saw one that he
must have been 12 or 13 feet long.
He was a big boy and he was up on a log
and we did not scare him one bit. He
didn't move. He didn't nothing sitting
there with his mouth open just watching
us and they're always watching, always
listening and they see
everything before you ever will.
And that's why you don't bring dogs with
you on hiking trips and camping trips
like that because the alligators down
here, if you got a dog, they
will run off with your dog.
But anyway, we get out there and we were
using our Sawyer. We had a Sawyer squeeze
just like this one. That same exact
model. And we got out there and we were
filtering our water. The water filter
clogged up two days into a eight day, six
to eight day trip. I can't remember if it
was six or eight by now.
The water filter clogged up, couldn't get
another drop out. And I'm like, Oh Lord.
And this was, you know, this was years
ago. This is before we really started
filtering with the
handkerchiefs and stuff like that.
And, you know, I remembered, I was like,
what am I going to do? What are we going
to do? I mean, we could boil the water.
Yeah. But what are we going to do for
like to get all this nasty out because
boiled nasty water
tastes like nasty water.
It's a fact of life. And, you know, I
know a lot of people, my stuff is geared
towards people getting into the woods for
the first time, going out for the first
time or, you know, not really used to it,
but want to learn more.
That's what my stuff is about. I'm not
your, your 100% survivalist saying, just
drink the water. Although that's what
inevitably is going to happen. You're
going to get out there and you're going
to start drinking the water, you know.
But anyway, this, you know, our filter
died and we had to come up with a way,
but I remembered in one of the survival
books to make a tripod water filter.
And so I made this tripod water filter
and they're in every survival book ever
made. I mean, every survival book all the
way from the army, the army survival
handbook all the way up to the SES.
And I even put them in mine and mine
ain't even really a survival book. It's
more about camping, but I demonstrate how
to make a water filter in here.
So we decided to go ahead and make this
filter. I had enough handkerchiefs with
me. So my brother, he started scraping
charcoal off of logs out of the fire.
And I walked around that Beaver pond till
I found some sand. And then we just made
the three tier survival water filter. And
then I had some bowls, some stainless
steel bowls to put
underneath there to catch it.
And these bowls, you know, when the
water, we ran the water through the first
time, it was like milk, you know, it
looked, it looked just like milk. It was
white and milky. And I was like, that's
disgusting. So we ran it back through.
And they saying, you know, as it, as it
started running, it came out crystal
clear. Now that's, it's really a
non-issue, but what we were doing was
trying to make the water clean enough to
where we could backwash the soiler.
And so what we're trying to filter it
down enough to where we had clean water
with no grit in it and no grime in it so
we could backwash this thing.
So what we ended up doing was boiling the
water, made it safe to drink. Then we
took some of that boiled water and
backwash this. And so much grime and grit
came out of here. It was crazy.
So the moral of the story is we ended up
getting to use the soiler. It was slow,
but we ended up getting to use it at the
end of the trip. And we, we boiled and
stored enough water to fill up two of
those one gallon bags, you know, so we
went, we had plenty of water.
It's not like it was 900 degrees outside,
you know, in the middle of the summer.
But anyway, moving right along with that,
you know, these are just gear options to
throw in your bag. I
recommend having a kit.
I recommend having a bag or a separate
kit bag inside your backpack that has
your water stuff in it and you're not
going to use it. So it's going to stay in
your bag till you get situated out in the
woods till you get your camp set up or
until you actually 100% have no other
means to filter your water.
So if you have one of these, then you can
have a kit put together and put in your
bag. But what I do recommend, I do
recommend this 100% is have some method
for your water, have a backup gear to
filter bulk amounts of water for all your
group and then have a personal one on
your person in case something happens to
this one and
something happens to that one.
Always have more than one, you know,
there's a saying out there, probably
everybody's heard is one is none, two is
one and one is none, you know, and that
is have multiple ways always have a
backup, always have a way to actually
filtrate your water and render it safe to
drink while you're out in the field.
And, you know, it can happen anywhere,
you know, when I go camping when I mean,
not camping when I go hunting, I always
have one of these with me. And it's not
because I know I'm going to get lost or I
think I'm going to get lost is sometimes
you get thirsty and you run out of water and you don't have any other water to drink.
So use this, you know, and where I hunt,
there's water where a lot of people hunt,
there's water, you can find water, but
there's some locations where you're not
going to find water, but still have a
water filter where you just in the event
of, you know, so granted, you know, I'm
in South Mississippi, water is pretty plentiful here.
And once you start heading out West,
water becomes less plentiful, but, you
know, have a water filtration system with
you in the event that you head out to the
woods. So but that's about it, you know.
Let me give you a quick tip. A
collapsible water container will save
space, but it will not have the
durability of a regular metal vessel. So
what I mean by that is a collapsible bag.
And this little quick tip is the bags
from Popeye, some of a lot of these
stores now we're going to cover this little bit of water.
Now we're going to cover this later on in
water section, but a lot of these stores
now when you buy drinks, they sell one
gallon drinks like down here, Popeye's
sells one gallon of sweet tea or lemonade
in a specific bag. And these bags are
perfect for collecting your water is
perfect for you can do dirty water or
clean water, you know, and I find that I
use the Popeye's reusable bags.
I took it home, washed it out, put some
bleach in there, washed it, you know, let
it let it kill all the germs, poured it
out, washed it out again. And those bags
are perfect for my dirty water. And I
fill up dirty water in those. And then
that way I could filter the water before
I pour it into a bag. And then I have
another bag that actually attaches to
this filter right here. And I'll let it
run gravity feed down into that bag.
So it's good stuff all the way around.
It's good stuff. So anyway, that's about
it in a water, you always want to have
some way to filtrate your water. You want
to start off with a shamog or a
handkerchief. And then you want to have
some kind of personal water filtration
system with you while
you're out in the woods.
Now, ultimately, if you do not have one
of these items listed here that I showed
here, a metal container, it always goes
back to a metal container, have a metal
container with you. Have it
where you can boil your water.
You do not have to filter all the water
out. Yeah, it's great. Let's filter out
the grit and grime so that way it don't
when you bite down, you don't have that
gritty taste, but you don't have to. You
can drink it straight out. So I always
have a way to filtrate your water.
All right, guys, so that's it for this
one. And next time we're going to be
talking about food and we're still in the
gear section. So we're going to be
talking about food
where food equals calories.
So I hope that every one of you enjoyed
this. And if you haven't had a chance, go
ahead and pick up the book, Primitive
Camping at Bushcraft. And right now it's
on sale. You can get it on my Shopify
account right here on YouTube. If you're
watching the video on YouTube, you can
also do Facebook. You can go to Facebook
and click on my shop. Click on there. And
also go ahead and join the Facebook
group, Primitive Camping at Bushcraft, as
well as Spear Outdoors on YouTube.
All right, so that's it for today. I hope
you enjoyed this video or this podcast.
Go ahead and rate and review it wherever
you are. And I'll see you in the next
video or the next episode. God bless you.