Out in the bush, water is often easy to find but hard to trust: a creek, a rock pool, a campground tank. A small filter makes it drinkable. The Sawyer Mini is about as small as they come: a teal tube that fits in the palm of your hand and screws onto a water bottle. I paid $36 for it and used it with a water bottle on our longer trip over to Adelaide. On hikes in Alligator Gorge and in Bouddi National Park, our bottles ran out at some point, so we refilled them with rainwater, screwed the Sawyer on and drank through it.
What You’re Getting
The filter itself, with black end caps and a push-pull drinking cap on a strap, and a clear plastic cleaning plunger. Together with the plunger it weighed 65 g on our scale.
What we like
- Tiny: fits in the palm of your hand
- 65 g with the cleaning plunger
- Screws onto a standard bottle
- Removes bacteria and protozoa
- Saved us when our bottles ran out
- Rated to 100,000 gallons
What we don’t
- Doesn’t remove viruses or chemicals
- Slow flow, clogs with silty water
Quick Specs
| Spec | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Sawyer |
| Model | SP340 |
| Weight | 65 gwith plunger |
| Fits | 28 mm bottlesPouchesHydration packs |
| Filter | 0.1 micron hollow fibre |
| Removes | BacteriaProtozoaMicroplastics |
| Rated for | 100,000 gallons |
| Included | FilterCleaning plunger |
Using it
The Mini screws onto a standard 28 mm water bottle, a drinking pouch or a hydration pack. We’ve used it on a water bottle, but it also works as a straw. Fill the bottle with water from the creek or tank, screw the filter on, and either drink straight from the push-pull cap or squeeze the water through into a clean bottle. Arrows on the filter show which way the water flows. It works well. The Mini is the small sibling of the Sawyer Squeeze, and its narrow filter is slower, but drinking straight through it we got a decent flow as long as we gave it some sucking power. It’s fine for a drink or a bottle at a time, but tedious if you want to filter a lot of water.
You don’t even need a bottle. Take the cap off the drinking end, put the other end straight into the water source, and use the Mini as a straw: suck the water up through the filter and drink. That’s the quickest way to get a drink from a creek or a rock pool when your bottle is empty.
What it filters out
Inside is a bundle of hollow fibres with 0.1 micron pores. Sawyer says it removes 99.99999% of bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli, 99.9999% of protozoa, such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, and 100% of microplastics. Like most hollow-fibre filters, it doesn’t remove viruses, heavy metals or dissolved chemicals, so for water you really don’t trust, combine it with purification tablets like Ef-Chlor.
Cleaning it
Over time the fibres clog with what they catch, and the flow slows down. That happens faster than with bigger filters, especially with silty or muddy water, so you’ll be backflushing it often. Our routine: every time we got back to the car, we flushed it with fresh water before storing it back in the drawer. That’s what the plunger is for: fill it with clean water, push it onto the outlet end and push the water back through the filter. Sawyer rates the Mini for up to 100,000 gallons, as long as you keep backflushing it.
Conclusion: Sawyer Mini Water FilterConclusion
The Sawyer Mini is a palm-sized 0.1 micron water filter that screws onto a standard bottle, removes bacteria and protozoa, and comes with a plunger to backflush it clean. It weighed 65 g on our scale with the plunger, and it’s rated to 100,000 gallons. The flow is slow and it clogs faster with silty water, and it doesn’t remove viruses, so pair it with tablets when the water is really suspect. It worked well for us with a water bottle on hikes in Alligator Gorge and Bouddi, and a quick flush with fresh water back at the car keeps it going. For the $36 I paid, it’s a handy little unit to keep in the bottom of your hiking pack.
A palm-sized 0.1 micron filter that removes bacteria and protozoa, screws onto a standard bottle and comes with a backflush plunger.
It weighed 65 g on our scale with the plunger and is rated to 100,000 gallons.
- Hikers
- 4WD tourers
- Travellers
Yes. I paid $36 for a filter that weighs next to nothing and is rated for a lifetime of water. It’s a handy little unit to keep in the bottom of your hiking pack for when the bottle runs out.
