MSR SweetWater Water Filter

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I have owned four different backcountry water filters (This Sweetwater, MSR MiniWorks, Katadyn Hiker PRO, and the Aquamira Water Bottle) The Sweetwater is my pick of the litter. It provides the best combination of reliability, water throughput, ease of maintenance, filter size and ease of use that I have found.

Here are a few tips to get the most out of your Sweetwater filter:

Read the instructions that came with this filter. I know that most people feel emasculated if they actually have to read the manual, but it will really help you get the most out of this filter. That way you will know what to do when water starts squirting out of the side of your pump, or the best way to store the filter between trips so that it will work next time. Seriously, read the whole thing.

If your filter seems to lose throughput, do a field cleaning using the included brush. If it gets clogged quickly, invest in the accessory MSR SweetWater Siltstopper (available from REI). This is a silt pre-filter that will keep your pump volume high for a longer period of time. People forget that even clear alpine lakes can have a high concentration of particulate matter that will quickly clog any small filter.

Develop a cadence when pumping. The trick is to find the right rhythm to get the 1 liter per minute flow without over-stressing the pump, possibly breaking it. Don't be impatient. You are in the backcountry; You can slow things down.

Cons: Nothing is perfect

Set up time is longer than many other filters. Also, special care must be taken to keep the 'clean' and 'dirty' hoses separated to avoid contamination. It is helpful, but not required, to have a second person to hold the output onto the bottles. So, Once you set up, filter a enough water for the whole day.

In summary: I have tried many filters and this one is my favorite.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

This was the first filter I ever bought and it will be the last one as well. I have had this filter for 9 years (I bought it when it was made by cascade designs under Sweet Water), it has never let me down! I have never bought a new filter cartridge and have used it to pump hundreds of gallons of water. I believe the key to this is the fact that I have always used the silt stopper.

I have seen the silt stopper turn black with muck to the point that the filter would not pull water through and I thought that it was clogged. But simply replacing the silt stopper worked like a charm. I have filtered everything from stagnate water in Mexico, to brown coffee colored water in a stream. There is no after taste and the water is always clear and pure. I have never been sick from this filter. Once in the jungle in southern Mexico next to Guatemala I filtered water from a pool that our host had just washed his hands and knives which he just used to kill a turkey with. Of course I didn't know what was in the water when I brushed my teeth with it that night, and I poured it out after I did...But since it was filted through my filter I didn't get sick!

This is tough and light weight little filter. All it requires is that you take reasonable care of it and keep it clean. Don't put it away wet and dirty or your water might taste a little funny next time. Other than that I have no gripes about this filter!

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I've had the Sweetwater system for many, many, years (15 or more?) and it has been reliable, if not always perfect. Sure, it'll start to squirt out the top from time to time, but you have to clean it and pay attention to what the water quality is like. Here's a tip - glacial water is full of microscopic-particulates and will clog your filters fast. Here’s another one – Try digging a hole in a sandy area along side of a river and letting it fill with water. Pumping from this stilling well will filter out a lot of the suspended sediments that show up when pumping directly from a river.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I'm bummed to read the negative comments from other reviewers. [...] -this is the best filter going. Mine is going on 5 years of regular seasonal use and it's never failed, is easy to use, provides great tasting water and is one of the lightest filtering options available. It's a delicate product, so you cannot abuse it. When treated with care, this filter will last you a long time.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I have used this filter on all my backpacking trips in the last year or so, around 30 days total. I also use the paper prefilter.

Isle Royale, Michigan UP, southern Illinois and New Mexico are places it has been used. All have water with high amounts of algae and silt except maybe NM.

The filter has performed great! Replacing the prefilter and field cleaning on rare occasions has kept me with fresh great tasting water through all my trips.

The filter gets cleaned after trips every time.

Mine was purchased on the recommendation of a friend who has used his since they first came out.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

My brother owns this model, and after borrowing it a few times, I decided to purchase my own. I really like this filter, as it's not too hard to pump, but still has a good output rate. I especially like how the handle folds up for storage.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I've used it on many short and long term backpacking trips during the past 8 years, and overall have been very satisfied with it's use, with one exception. Occasionally it becomes very difficult to pump - collapsing the intake hose, even with the siltstopper attached.

Hint - if you have problems like this, and have gone through the cleaning routine to no avail, there is one more trick. In addition to pumping a quart of water with 1 oz of chlorine bleach through the filter and letting it set for a day, do the same for the pre-filter! I simply put it in approximately 1 qt of water with an oz of bleach and let it sit for a day - began pumping fine again.

Once I did the above, it has worked great! I now do this after every few trips, same as I do for the filter.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I took this filter out on two trips last year, an overnighter and a week-long trek. The filter began clogging even after I had only pumped a few liters through it. A few swipes with the brush took care of this at first, but it soon became a serious problem. By the end of the week trip the filter clogged every couple of liters, had to be cleaned several times a day, and was extremely difficult to pump even just after cleaning. Mind you, this water was from clear mountain lakes and streams. Fortunately I had some iodine tabs with me as a backup. I cannot have pumped more than 100 liters through this filter. It was such a big disappointment, I am surprised to see so many positive reviews on the site. I am glad some have had good experiences with the Sweetwater, because I have not.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I have gone through four of these filters since they came out in 1993 and made by Sweetwater in Boulder, CO. It is the lightest filter on the market to this day but it is prone towards breaking in the polycarbonate handle. The paper filter is also not very durable and can become clogged easily. I still use it but there is still plenty of room for a better filter in the marketplace.

Comments about MSR SweetWater Microfilter:

I bought the sweetwater filter around 1984 when I was just a kid. I have used it only occasionally. I have only bothered to clean it a few times. I’ve been pretty hard on it by just dropping the 100 micro (75 microns now) pre-filter in to puddles of muddy water. It would get kind of gritty on the inside, but the filtered water was always clean.

This past summer I added a silt stopper pre-filter and took it on a week long trip to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. I’m not quite sure what went wrong, but the filter cartridge finally died on this trip. It started out by wasting lots of water out the pressure release valve, but I couldn’t get it apart to clean it. That was when I started noticing black rocks in the bottom of the Nalgene. I remembered that the filter had several stages. The pre-filter which is 100 (now 75 microns), the silt stopper which is about 5 microns, the filter (mine was 0.3 microns, but now they are 0.2 microns), and lastly a GAC filter (Granulated Activated Carbon, I think now it might be some sort of carbon impregnated cloth, mat, or block, I’ll have to cut one open). Anyway in my unit whatever was holding the GAC in place finally gave out, and the filter spit carbon granules for the rest of the trip.
It was really not big deal, but I was used to nice clear fresh tasting water. Without the carbon, the water was a bit yellow and tasted like lake water. Shortly afterwards the silt stopper filter clogged with silt and algae. I still couldn’t pull the hoses off to take the unit apart for a cleaning, so I kept pumping. Then the filter started only pumping from one direction and very little water was coming out as the filter kept sucking the water back up on the down stroke. I looked over everything and saw that as I pumped the suction was great enough to cause the water to evaporate (boil) through the clogged silt stopper. I could see that the water was crystal clear just after the slit stopper, but it was still full of carbon rocks at the output. At this point I made a serious effort and popped all of the hoses off for inspection and cleaning.
Inside the main filter cartridge was fine, so I tested it with some previously filtered water. It worked normally, so I tried to clean the silt stopper per the directions by connecting it up to the output to reverse the water flow. I used filtered water for cleaning, but the silt stopper split in two making it useless. Since the main cartridge was fine, I just left the slit stopper out and continued to use the filter. After all of this the filter worked just fine (nobody got sick), but without the GAC the water was a bit yellow and tasted like lake water.

Even with all of the above, I plan to buy a new main cartridge and continue to carry this filter any time I go hiking, camping, canoeing, etc. I am still undecided about the stilt stopper, because I don’t know if it was age or the stilt stopper that messed up my main cartridge.


Pros: This is a great filter and I was still able to trust it even after all the problems I was having.

Cons: keeping track of all the hoses is a real pain, plus when pumping from the shore the float usually carries the pre-filter from deeper water toward you until the pre-filter is resting on the bottom.