Katadyn BeFree 3L Water Filter

Product detailed description

Fill the soft, compact bottle with water, screw on the filter, and you can drink right away through the sports cap. Thanks to the reliable EZ-Clean Membrane™ technology with a pore size of 0.1 microns, you don’t have to worry about the quality of the water source in the wilderness. The wide-mouth soft bottle makes it easy to fill even from hard-to-reach sources (between rocks, etc.), the filter has excellent flow, is lightweight, and, according to the manufacturer, should be easy to clean. Although it’s already last year’s new product, which has won just about every prestigious award (gold medal at ISPO 2017, Backpacker Editors’ Choice 2017), we needed to test it in practice before adding it to our lineup. Specs are one thing, practical use is another...

Our Experience

"I thoroughly tested the 1-liter version during my 97-day trek on the Appalachian Trail and it really works wonderfully—great flow—even after several weeks, it’s better than a new Sawyer SP129. Water is easy to draw into the soft, surprisingly durable bottle, and the empty bottle takes up no space. This is a gem. BUT – cleaning/rinsing the filter is inefficient and must be done quite gently, otherwise you’ll damage the filter. To clean the filter, fill the bottle with clean water and “rinse” the filter by shaking it.

It sounds good and simple, but it doesn’t really work—only the largest impurities get rinsed out, and the ones that actually restrict the flow remain... And if you decide to shake the filter a little too vigorously, you’ll damage it like I did—the ceramic filter fibers are a bit loose in the filter’s “cage” and will probably break off. And if you damage the bottle, you’re completely screwed—unlike the Sawyer, which you can screw onto almost any PET bottle, this filter doesn’t fit any standard bottle... and that can be a real problem, especially on longer treks."

So, the filter works great, has excellent flow rate, and is easy to use. Dimensions and weight are excellent. Great for shorter, quick hikes. Thanks to its superb flow rate, it also works great as a gravity filter. This 3-liter version is specifically designed for that, and the bottle already has holes for easy hanging.

Filter Test

With the Katadyn, it’s quite interesting and simple to test whether the filter is working properly (if it freezes, falls, or after cleaning)—if you can blow air through the wet filter, the filter is damaged. In practice, you do this by filling the bottle halfway with water, screwing on and tightening the filter securely, turning the filter upside down, and squeezing out the water. If the water runs out and you’re able to squeeze air out of the bottle as well, the filter is damaged. It’s simple physics—thanks to the surface tension of the water, air bubbles have no chance of passing through the pores filled with water. If air passes through, there must be a much larger crack or leak somewhere.

The Katadyn BeFree is available in 0.6-liter, 1-liter, and 3-liter bottle sizes, but anyone who tries the filter will realize that the 0.6-liter size is pointless—fill the bottle with water, screw on the filter, wipe the bottle so the dirty water running down it doesn’t contaminate the clean water, squeeze out barely half a liter, unscrew the filter, go back down to the water to scoop up another batch, screw the filter back on, wipe the bottle... if you need three liters, you’ll end up stomping that 0.6-liter bottle right there :-)

The 0.6-liter size could theoretically fit into a running vest... but it’s actually quite too big for that. The filter can be used in various ways—you can either drink water directly from the filter, store the filled bottle for later, or filter the water right at the source into another bottle that’s easier to handle (it fits better in a backpack’s side pocket and can be pulled out and put back while walking).

Katadyn BeFree:

• Pore size 0.1 microns – removes 99.9999% of protozoa and bacteria (according to EPA standards).
• Weight: 104 g (with bottle).
• Compact, durable, flexible, BPA-free bottle with a 42mm wide mouth Hydrapak® Softflask^TM
• Excellent flow rate of 2 L/min.
• Filter lifespan up to 1,000 L depending on water quality.
• Sports cap that allows you to drink directly from the bottle.
• Option to flush the filter and test its functionality.
• Option to purchase a replacement filter cartridge.