MSR MiniWorks EX Backountry Water Filter

I use this water purifier while backpacking in the western US. I think there are different strategies to purifying water from doing nothing to adding chemicals etc. There is evidence that waters in the Sierra Nevadas that come out of glaciers are probably not contaminated. But the only way to prove that is by testing or making certain that there is nothing between you and the source of the water. For me, safety matters. I don't want to be losing water and calories while my intestinal tract runs amok, so I purify water. I don't like the taste of chemical treatments like iodine and chlorine, which may not work if not done right. Boiling water takes too much time, and if you need to stock up on several liters in a dry area, you may not be able to boil enough. That's why I chose a filtration system. And I looked over every brand and model, and chose the MSR MiniWorks based on the following: 1. It is lightweight (I used to have a Katadyn, which is built and weighs like a rock), so it's not going to add too much to your pack. It's heavier than chemicals or some of the UV systems, but it's not bad. It comes in a nice little mesh bag, so you can stuff it into a corner of your pack. 2. It has a 0.45µ filter, which removes 99% of bacteria, and probably 99.999% of parasites (like giardia). It does NOT remove viruses, but unless you're in a crowded city without a good sewage system, I probably wouldn't worry about it. MSR makes a filtration system that adds chlorine, but for a North American or European trip, not worth it. 3. The bottom of the device fits onto standard wide mouth Nalgene bottles and canteens. I have several 3L canteens that I can fill in 2-3 minutes. It makes it easy, reduces spillage, and just is cool. 4. The tube end that goes into the water source has a float. This keeps the intake off the bottom which has fine silt and crud. That'll clog up your filter in minutes if not seconds. 5. The ceramic filter can be easily cleaned. I sometimes carry a spare filter, but I've never replaced the original despite filtering literally thousands of liters of water. Keep it clean, and don't try to filter muddy water, and a ceramic filter can last nearly forever. 6. Despite being all plastic, this thing is bombproof. I don't throw it in the bottom of my pack to be crushed, putting it in a side pocket, but I'm not sure I worry about it that much. 7. It pumps fast, as long as you keep the crud out. I get 1-1.5 l/min. Pristine Sierra streams give me the upper end. 8. Because this filter removes most of the organics in the water, the taste is wonderful. This is what I don't get about the people who love the chemicals. You get the nasty iodine or chlorine tastes PLUS the awful taste of some of the water. I actually use this filter at home sometimes to refill water bottles and put them in my refrigerator. There's more, but I'm supposed to keep this short. Are there negatives? I don't see one, but I'm sure someone will complain about the weight or plastic breaking or something. None of that has happened to me. This is probably the best water filter I've ever purchased.

This filter is amazing. It is the gold standard of water filtration in my book. I have used this filter on many trips, and just love the ease of use, and the knowledge that it will work, every time. The design is simple to use, and anyone can figure it out. The filter cartridge goes in easy, and needs very little maintenance. Every once in a while you just need to clean it in clean water (using the included abrasive sponge), and measure (with included measuring tool) to make sure it is still thick enough to be effective. The tube is long enough to use easily when next to a stream, but not so long that it gets in the way. I love that it screws onto nalgene bottles, as that makes it easy to quickly and safely get water for the whole camp. I am a crew leader and have taken multiple groups of 8-12 high school students into the woods for over a month at a time, and using 2 of these filters, we can easily get water for everyone. Storage is easy when you get home - you just slowed boil the cartridge, wait for it to dry, and then pack it up. And when you are out camping, the included carry bag has a mesh side, so any spilled water or water still in the hose can dry out between uses. Overall the best out there - you will NOT be disappointed if you get this filter. Note - many people complain that the ceramic filter cracks easily. I am not sure how this happens, as I have literally used this filter for years, and have never had a problem. If it is tough enough to be issued out by USFS and my company for crews of high school students, it should be tough enough for anyone experienced enough at camping to attempt a back country trip. I would just say that it is ceramic, so it CAN break - and thus do not attempt to disassemble or clean in the dark while balanced on rocks in the middle of the river. You do not need to clean these often, so unless you are out for months at a time like we are, I say stick to cleaning the filter when you get home to avoid this risk. That being said, when the ceramic cartridge is in the filter and it is sealed, it can take quite a bit of abuse with no issues (remember - high school kids).

---Update after 3 years of use; This filter is still going strong. Have used many times, pumping several liters at a time. I am just now getting ready to replace my filter. I love this guy and is one of my bob gems.--- Looking for a filter/pump combo? Decent price? Right here. Pump can be completely disassembled, every last little part, with no tools what so ever. Pump is very simple operation with very high quality construction, this pump will last a long time. Pump came in very impressive packaging, mesh bag to carry everything in, and thorough instruction manuals, one for each language (a fair number of them), not this go to page 5 for english crap. Pump out put is a large mouth thread that I am unfamiliar with, though it appears to be a standard camel-bak threading at first glance. MSR makes a bag that will screw in. Eventhough output is threaded, you do NOT need to use that, there is an output nipple you can cut a length of hose (same dia hose the pump comes with) and use that. We used a few inch section just long enough to make it easier to fill bottles and other items. Unlike some others people, we actually tested this in a very questionable, dirty, dark water pond, not some fancy clear stream. That being said, pump operation was slightly more difficult (it has a lot more to filter) and thus flow rate was slightly reduced. Water came out clean and odor free. First couple liters had that new filter taste, but aside from that, taste was of clean tap water. My self and several others drank at least one liter and I have drank over a gallon I took home in my water carrier. No medical issues what so ever. Invaluable product for a bug out bag or for any prepper to have in his/her closet. I would buy over and over again.

I picked this up for a 100 mile trek through the high Uintas due to my Steripen acting up and it worked out great. In the past I've always just used a pre-filter and the UV pen which has spoiled me a bit in the weight and time to filter department. It takes a little longer to filter water with this unit but it came out crystal clear and tasted great. It has a threaded bottom so certain bottles can be attached directly to the filter while you pump. I was using the Platypus soft bottles on my trip which made things a little difficult to get the filtered water in the bladders as the mouth openings are much smaller that what the Miniworks was designed to have attached to it but I managed. I think a small piece of tubing attached to the output would work out great for filtering in to odd shaped bottles. The only real downside in my opinion is the filter needs constant cleaning for optimal output. Most water I filtered were high alpine streams that were about as clear as can be and by about the third liter it's output was slowing down significantly. After pulling the ceramic cartridge out and giving it a quick cleaning, the output picks right back up. Overall a great purchase and great piece of kit to have in the backcountry!

Now I will just put a disclaimer that I haven't used the filter I purchased, but from reading other reviews and the recommendation of a Canadian YouTuber who reviews tools, I'm confident in this filter's capabilities. While this is good to go out of the box. Just connect the inlet tubing and pump away, there are a few recommendations I would make to get the most out of your filter. First have 3 containers for water, a bandana, and some coffee filters for super filthy water. What you do is you use one container to collect the water use the bandana to filter out large particles of water into the second container, with the coffee filters secured to the inlet side of the filter you use the second container as a pump inlet and use the third container as storage for the clean water. Ideally I would recommend Naglene wide mouth water bottles, they are readily available in most sporting goods stores, cheap, can be clipped to a backpack and fit the outlet for the filter pump perfectly. Using this method you should be able to get the most out of your filter with minimal cleaning. Second I would recommend buying a second filter cartridge and the maintenance kit. If it's worth having one it's worth having two and you you get even more use out of the filter. Third I would recommend having a back up water purification system. Either chemical tablets or what most people will have who plan to use this, a cooking kit to boil water. Not only to insure maximum purification of the water filtered, but just for that 1% chance your filter fails while in the middle of nowhere. Other than these recommendations it is a great addition for any hiker, camper, hunter, fisher, outdoorsman, or survivalist to carry with them in their pack. It's lighter than carrying jugs of water with you everywhere, it's simple to use, and it's reasonably durable, just be sure not to get into the habit of dropping it or rough handling it.

I had to get another filter for backpacking when after ten years my MSR SweetWater filter wore out. I did some research for a few days reading reviews on both the SweetWater and the MiniWorks from customers and outdoor adventure organizations ,and finally decided to purchase the MiniWorks to replace my SweetWater because it was completely repairable in the field and was advertised as having the same flow rate. I am an outgoing backpacker who commonly goes distances of 10 miles or more carrying up to 50lbs in my pack for days in the mountains of Montana where I live. I require a good filter that will work. The SweetWater was much faster at filling my water bottle, easier to clean, but I could not repair it myself. The Miniworks is slower at about .75 Quart per minute, clogs at about the same rate (6-7 US Quarts) in Montana streams which are not very murky with dirt or with tannins, but is more of a pain to clean as you have to use clean water from your filter or water bottle. I guess I was spoiled by the SweetWater filter because it would fill my Nalgene in a minute or less without fail, and could be disassembled, cleaned, reassembled, and back in use in about a minute, but it cannot be repaired by you the user in the field. However I never had any problems with my SweetWater in ten years of outdoor use in the mountains. The MiniWorks seems to be a very high quality filter that will last at least ten years, and I will recommend it to anyone who needs a top of the line filter for creating drinking water from almost any water source on the globe without additional water treatments because of its ceramic cartridge, but if you're like me and are buying the MiniWorks after having used the SweetWater for the past ten years, you're going to grow into a more patient hiker/backpacker :) I really love the idea of being able to repair and maintain my filter in the field, which is why I'm going to stick with the MiniWorks!

I researched filtration systems for almost a month before settling on the MSR miniworks. I figured I could just go pick one up at the local Cabela's or REI, but BOTH retail stores were sold out of these, while there was still a good supply of the other MSR and Katadyn filter systems on the shelf. I took this as a sign that this is the filter to have and ordered it from Amazon, and it has been worth every penny. Read on.... In Camp: The filter is very simple to use and has a good output-per-pump ratio. You never really feel like you are doing more work than you should for the amount of water you are pushing through, especially if you take into account the fact that every pump is worth about one gulp of nasty water that you WON'T have to drink. If you do see a diminished output, simply unscrew the filter housing and give the element a light scrubbing. We were taking water from a brown lake that is loaded with tannins and we would get about 2 litres through (about 2 full-size nalgene bottles worth) before we noticed the filter could use a cleaning. Tannin-loaded water is supposedly some of the worst for clogging these ceramic filters, so if you have cleaner water sources at your site than we do, your element-cleaning cycles should be farther apart. The water came out crystal-clear and almost tasteless. It didn't taste like Dasani bottled water, but it definitely didn't taste like tea-colored lake water either. Pretty much neutral. More importantly, it tasted CLEAN and nobody got sick. Also, the MSR Miniworks requires no chemical additives but still claims to filter everything but viruses. The chance of contracting a waterborne virus from a U.S. lake or stream (think Polio, Hep-A, SARS, and a few others which you have probably had vaccinations for) is far lower than getting sick from bacteria or parasites. If this still bothers you, you can still boil your clear, clean-tasting water just to be sure. Out of Camp: The maintenance on this filter is very simple. The unit breaks down into 4 major parts, and the wrist pins on the pump assembly are quick-release squeeze-and-push types. You can literally have this thing stripped down and cleaned completely in about 5 minutes, and that includes the sterilization of the filter element. A couple dabs of silicone grease or chap stick is all you need to lube it up when you are reassembling the unit. The Hidden Bonus: $80 may seem like a lot for a water filter, but the MSR miniworks pays you back exponentially... Prior to buying a filtration system, everyone in our backpacking party hauled their own water needed for the entire trip. We would calculate what we needed for hydration and cooking each day, plus a bit more just in case, and we strictly stuck to these rations. We would have enough water, but never enough to truly quench one's thirst. Having this filter in our party allowed us to drop about 15 lbs carried, per person! Plus, we didn't have to pack out a bunch of empty water bottles anymore. One filter supports 4 of us and we now drink as much as we want. When you think about how important hydration is to your body's systems (Read Cody Lundin's "98.6 Degrees" book and you will know more about the subject than you ever wanted to), shelling out $80 to have clean, safe water on-demand anywhere you can find a water source is a small price to pay. Tips: -Put a coffee filter over the hose inlet and secure it with a twist-tie, rubber band, or fishing line. This will make your MSR filter pump more efficiently for longer without as-frequent element cleaning. Everytime you clean the element, you are scrubbing away some of the element's overall diameter. When it gets too thin, you have to get a new element. Fewer cleaning cycles = prolonged filter life and more money remains in your pocket. Filter element, $40. Coffee filter, 3 to 4 cents. -Bring a spare filter element if you are going on an extended trip or are going to be absolutely dependent on this filter for your drinking water while you are out! Meaning: hiking back to your vehicle and driving like a madman to the nearest 7-11 for a drink before you go into a coma from dehydration is not going to be an option! The word is, these ceramic elements are fragile. Finding this out at the wrong time and being caught without a spare would be a very bad thing. If you spent the cash for the filter and other people in your party use it, have them pony up the $40 and buy the spare element for you. It's only fair.... right? -USE A NALGENE BOTTLE WITH THIS UNIT (or other similar one that will attach to the adapter). The motion created while you are pumping is far too violent for precision-aiming the output stream into any loose container, except for a bucket. You can also attach another length of rubber hose to the outlet and run that to your container, but we have not tried this yet. The Nalgene bottle seemed like the simple solution to use with the filter and we filled our other containters from this bottle. {Product use update} - Our party of 3 did a 4-day backcountry hike in the Grand Canyon (search: Tanner Trail) this past winter. This is definitely NOT a tourist trail, and the first 2000-3000 ft of elevation is not much a trail at all. The noted only water source along this entire route is at the very bottom of the canyon, the Colorado River. We were able to augment our hike-in water supply by searching for pools of water trapped in depressions of the rocks near the places where we made camp, and pumping water from them using the MSR Miniworks. I don't even want to think of what was in those water pools, but what came through the filter was clean and refreshing. We made notes of the larger water pools, which allowed us to lighten our water load on the hike-out and stop by the pools for a top-off when we needed it.

This is a solid filter. It is well designed, light, easy to use, easy to store, and durable. MSR does it again! I bought it to replace a Katahdin Filter (Hiker Pro) that broke. It is better than the Katahdin for several reasons. There is only one tube, so less stuff to deal with and fewer places that water can accumulate and fungus can grow. Also, there is no tube for the outlet (clean) water; it comes straight from the filter, which is great. The pump is designed in a more logical way, so that you are pressing your arms together to pump instead of pressing down on a small pump handle (as with the Katahdin). The MSR pump screws directly into your Nalgene, so you only have one thing to hold while pumping water. This can be very important if you pump from some of those hard-to-reach streams. The flow rate is pretty good, although I doubt you could get the advertised 1L/min consistently. There are few moving parts, so maintenance in the field should not be that tough. (The inlet valve blew out on my Katahdin, and the inlet valve seems much sturdier and fixable on the MSR.) My recommendation to MSR: For the part of the pump that screws into the Nalgene, put this on a swivel so that you can more easily remove the bottle. It is kind of annoying to unscrew the bottle as is, but still a great pump.

良い商品です

Utilizzato per un trekking in Mustang di sedici gg. Ha fatto il suo dovere ottimamente. nb: per mantenere inalterato nel tempo il flusso di 1lt al minuto, occorre periodicamente pulire il filtro

Lo compre despues de usar el de una amiga. Fuimos a la Selva en Centroamerica, el agua era literalmente marron y usamos este filtro para cocinar incluso en alguna ocasion para beber. Creo que para viajes "extremos" es una buena inversion en tu salud. Es muy ligero, No pesa mucho. Asi que en montañismo quizá es mejor que llevar agua embotellada si sabes que vas a encontrar rios. La bomba es delicada hay que usarlo con cuidado. Aun no he tenido tiempo de usar el que he comprado pero es el mismo modelo que usé por lo que me atrevo a opinar.

J'ai longtemps attendu et hésité avant d'acheter ce filtre et je dois dire qu'il est très bien, j'avais peur que l'élément en céramique soit très fragile, mais il a quand même survécu à un voyage en avion (bagage à main). Le produit est très simple d'utilisation et le fait que toutes les pièces soient remplaçable en cas de problème vous donne vraiment une autonomie complète. Par contre je recommande de mettre un filtre à café au bout de la sortie du tuyau car le filtre à tendance à très vite se boucher si vous pompez de l'eau stagnante. J'ai testé dans un étang près de chez moi et même si l'eau était à peut près claire j'ai mis pas mal de temps à pomper pour avoir 500ml. Il faut vraiment pomper assez longtemps pour avoir un gros volume d'eau filtrée. La maintenance est très simple, juste à vider l'eau contenue dans le tuyau en pompant "a vide" et ensuite quand vous êtes de retour chez vous nettoyer le filtre à l'eau claire avec le grattoir fourni, je vous recommande aussi d'utiliser une brosse à dent car les extrémités sont difficiles d'accès. On peut alors par contre se demander comment faire lorsque l'on est dans une situation où l'on a pas accès à de l'eau claire pour nettoyer le filtre (?) c'est un peu le défaut que je trouve à celui ci, il demande pas mal de ressources pour sa maintenance. (combustible pour chauffer l'eau et le décontaminer, + de l'eau claire..).

AAAAAAAAAA++++++++++😁