Sport Berkey Portable Water Purifier

Around Christmas I bought a Sport Berkey portable water purifier on eBay for about $36. I had planned to use it this summer and do a revue on it. From what I have read about the Sport Berkey I really thought it would make a very nice, light-weight, inexpensive (in other words, cheap) water filter that would be relatively safe. According to the Sport Berkey people their filter will remove up to 99.9% of many health-threatening contaminants, including harmful pathogens, pesticides, detergents, Aluminum, Mercury, Radon 222, and such using something called the Ionic Adsorption Micro Filtration System. It has a shelf life of 50 years.

Then we had a situation here where the Township informed us that the water supply is contaminated with Ecoli bacteria and that we should boil any water that we wanted to drink. With that I figured now would be a good time to put the Sport Berkey to test.

In this video I am trying a test that I've seen where blue food dye is filtered through the Sport Berkey. It indeed does filter out the blue food dye completely.

In the video I mentioned that the bottle could be refilled 160 times from sources like streams and 640 times from Municipal water supplies. What I failed to mention is the capacity of the bottle. With the filter in place the bottle holds 22 fl oz, but I doubt that more than 16 fl oz could be gotten out of the bottle at one time.

To find out more about the Sport Berkey portable water purifier, visit http://berkeycleanwater.com/portable-water-purifier

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[pappyhighlife]

I may be wrong Hiram but their add says "You can't tell the difference from fresh water and sea water." Are they saying it filters sea water as well?

Or did I miss something?

[hiramcook]

Which ad is that? I don't remember them ever saying it would remove salt. Would be an interesting test, easy to do if they said that. Please let me know where that ad is.

[snede2112]

Cool, thanks for sharing. I saw something like this at Walmart.  I'll have to check it out.

[hiramcook]

If you find it please let me know what they call it. I'ld be interested in checking it out too. Thanks.

[BrokenAeroVT]

Nice test. Any cramps yet? haha

[hiramcook]

Not yet, but then that's like the guy who jumps off of a 30-story building

and every floor says, "So far, so good!"

LOL

[leletwty]

i am thinking about buying this bottle for my trip to africa. did u really filter out e.coli from this bottle????? im a nursing student so i know what e.coli can do to the body and if i can really fliter out e.coli then i know it will be safe for me to take... thanks

[awarenessis]

Would you ever dare, if entirely necessary, do a Kevin Costner Waterworld filtration with the filter? You know the scene, I'm sure, if you have seen the movie.

[WORRO01]

Thumbs up review, thank you~John

[ichetuknee]

Removal of the blue food coloring is not indicative of the filter's performance on other contaminants. It is a dramatic visual representation, but only for contaminants of similar chemistry to the food coloring. It does not represent what would happen with E. coli, polio virus, salt, cyanide, etc. Each contaminant would need to be tested separately. Viewers could be in serious trouble, if they were overconfident in such products.

I've done this testing professionally for 25+ years.

[cursivedragon]

Getting gear ready for big three day backpacking trip. Saw this on Amazon.com and wondered if it was any good. Thanks! Now I know.

[winnipegdiver]

food coloring  souldn't have any taste or so i would think

[maxvauderk]

Thanks Hiram, have you ever experimented with the bota bottle? I also have the msr miniworks I intend to do this test with bothof them.

[ez2curanut]

@hiramcook No e-coli side effects Hiram? I am thinking about buying one of these, compared to other handpump type filter, seems selfcontained here- the berkey type. in a pinch, im thinking maybe one could cut (or install) a smaller tubing and use this water filter upside down and gravity feed to another container for boiling. good video testing.

[upupaepops]

They don't actually mention that on their website, but one Berkey retailer's website say "the Berkey filtration elements are not meant to treat salt water and may damage your filter elements." Another says "NOTE: it is not a desalinator, and does not work with salt water."

[snede2112]

It shows up on their web site in the camping section. It's called a Sawyer inline water filter.