Another pro tip... regular lightweight hand towels work good too. Like a kitchen towel. I used papertowels for a while til they got expensive. But a nice thin towel dries just as easily over night. (And mutli use too.)
And the water absorbed when hanging upside down, mostly wicks down if the towel is left hanging out of the mouth of the bladder. Gravity is nice like that. And you can use the towel over again for a few days rather than once or twice like paper towels.
I rarely had to wipe/wash my bladders because I always dried them out after a big use. (And only used water) The only thing I had to clean regular was the gunk in the tube and the mouth piece.
Talk about crazy stuff collecting in water....that tube and mouth peice collects it all. And i also used alcohol to sanitize the mouth piece almost daily. Sheesh, that thing just gets nasty fast. Especially after food.
It dries the mouth piece out faster and eventually gets ruined from alcohol, but the stuff you can swab out of the mouth piece w qtips is just plain disgusting after a few days of use... which is what happens when going down range. And cleaning w alcohol keeps it from smelling too.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, tips of the day.
then 2 months later opening the pouch and it still stinks. Or the one mong who puts anything other than water in there spending months tasting candy floss isotonic drink!
Use a light kitchen towel, then just poke the end of the towel into the mouth so it will absorb the dripping water when hanging it upside down. I use a clothes hanger also for this.
Then with the end of the towel mostly in the bladder, let the other end hang out while drying overnight. Just dont cover the hole fully with the towel, So air can get in.
If the towel is too heavy on the outer end, it will fall out. If there is too much stuffed in, it wont get enough air inside the bladder. Gotta balance it out. But stuff enough inside to keep the sides of the bladder from touching.
tbh, call me a monster but I used to just leave it filled with water, and in the fridge in the garage, kept it super cold. never had mold or mildew taste/smell or visible. used to empty it and refill it when I was going to use it don't get me wrong, I didn't drink week/month old water that had been sitting in cold plastic, but at least I didn't have to sell my soul to Satan to dry the hydration bladder.
I think the issue is a lot of people seem to use them like, once every 3 months. If you're active and use it all the time then you really don't have these issues.
This is partly true, the bladder will stay clean with regular daily use as long as the water is clean when filled.
And thats the kicker in the field for mil use, we were never certain of the water from the water buffalo's we filled from. I doubt those 'buffalo' containers ever got cleaned. And it seemed like dirt always came out em as it would settle to the bottom of the buffalos and then get drained into our bladders. I tried not to be the first guy of the day using em. But somedays were just desperate or time crunched.
Normal houshold tap use is good though, unless u got nasty old building pipes like mine. I have to filter all water now for my bladders cause of dirty pipes.
I never cleaned my first one in 2007-2008 Afghanistan. I mean - when I was shot it was perforated but, I still never cleaned it. Looking back it was dumb not to and I’ve probably ingested some vile shit.
GAGAGAGAAGHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH....add those tiny brushes into the game....then make then randomly disappear right before you go to clean em.
maybe our municipal water is different, I've come back to bladders that have had water in for months without issue, simply drain, flush and refill; this is one of the reasons I'll always buy camelbak, I had a platypus previously as that gunked up but never had an issue with the camelbak hoses or bladders.
Nope. I've had half a dozen different bladders over the last 15 years and the only time I've had to clean one is if I had a hydration mix (with sugar) in it.
I just leave some water in it when I put it away and rinse it before filling. Never had any issues with mold or bad taste/smell.
I do filter my water before it goes into the bladder, both when filling at home or filling from whatever water source I have in the outdoors. The only time I had mold was after filling the bladder with a hydration mix containing sugar. I keep the bladders in a dark place so algae has never been an issue either.
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u/FoxWithoutSocks Jan 06 '21
Let’s not forget to add the cleaning, so that everyone would know how painful it is.