Kind of a rant — I drink water and flavored-water beverages, and I don’t wanna buy 24-packs of water and trust my local municipality to recycle. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Either way, it’s not recycle, it’s “reduce, reuse, recycle.” I’ll drink a Gatorade (Zero) and reuse it a few times and then toss it.
But if I want a reusable bottle — there’s one by Aladdin (Thermos) I like, and one by Zojirushi, I’ve bought two of each over the years. Just tossed the Zojirushi. Zojirushi is a Japanese brand, very high quality, but a bit over-engineered. It’s got this rubber gasket and plug that, you can clean them daily, they get black spots. Not sure if it’s mould or what, but it’s kinda gross and I don’t like it. The Aladdin/Thermos one is a bit better, didn’t think there was any mould anywhere until I dropped it, the cap flew out, mould farm inside! Nowhere that touched the beverage so that was nice. But I’m kinda done with both of them. I would rather just waste plastic than risk drinking from a mouldy reusable cup.
Are there reusable bottles that aren’t mould farms?
Gaskets are consumables, whatever bottle you get, make sure you can source additional gaskets.
been using the same bottle for over a year. insides are 302 stainless with a silicone gasket. I only keep water in it, nothing but water.
I wash it with a bottle scrub every four weeks.
- hot rinse (hottest from tap)
- soap wash (scrub)
- vinegar rinse with hot to steam
- rinse with cold until I don’t smell vinegar
I rinse it every week using the same steps above, I just don’t scrub it. I pay close attention to the gasket and make sure it gets a full exposure of the vinegar.
I had a Zojiirushi in the past too. I agree, it takes too much effort to clean. I now use a wide mouth bottle that just has a screw top lid, no straw or drinking apparatus besides the large open mouth. No gaskets or anything else. It’s only two surfaces to clean and requires no disassembly, other than taking the lid off. It’s much easier to keep clean.
The brand doesn’t matter. Just get a wide mouthed metal bottle of whatever cheap brand is around. None of them have engineered a new alloy that makes their bottles better or anything. Just make sure it’s double-hulled if insulation is important, which most are.
this is less a problem with the bottle and more a problem with how you’re not cleaning them well enough.
Just learn how to clean them and clean them. There is no magic bottle that doesn’t.
Invest in a bottle brush and clean your container well.
The only thing that ever comes in contact with my water bottle is water. It is always spotless.
You are contaminating it with your mouth when you drink from it. If you put sugary stuff in there, you are basically carrying a petri around with you and asking why its growing stuff.
32oz wide mouth Nalgene for me. I have 3 and cycle them every 2 days. Dishwasher when I run it and bottle brush once a week. Never a hint of anything.
Exactly what I have. I just fill it up with water and just dump it out. I hardly ever scrub it completely; just a soap + water + shake twice a month.
Watch out for those microplastics though
Anything that’s wet all the time is going to grow mold or algae or whatever.
Whether you rinse or scrub, if you just shake off the drips or even towel it off before you fill it up again it’s going to get gross.
It needs to spend a significant amount of time completely dry.
The solution is to have 2 bottles and switch them every few days.
I would just not care about the biofilm and wash it regularly. If you fill the bottle from a clean source and it doesnt smell or taste strange, the water should be fine for consumption.
You know your fresh water pipes also have biofilms in them? If it isnt contaminated, the microorganisms there are harmless. So if you get clean water from the pipes and your mouth has a healthy microbiome, where should potentially harmful microorganisms come from?
Only in rare amounts from the environment when you open the bottle. For that to create a buildup will take time. If you properly wash your bottle like once a week you should be fine.
No bottle will stay clean if you dont wash it from time to time.
Yeti wide mouth because it’s easy to clean. I just flush it with hot tap water and a drop of Dawn, let it sit for a few minutes, then hold my hand over the mouth and shake. Rinse thoroughly, then dry right side up so condensation doesn’t build up inside. The part to really pay attention to is the mouthpiece, but that is quickly cleaned with some soapy water and a rag.
Also, DON’T use your dishes rag/sponge on your water bottles, as it always has residual dish gunk (no matter how many times you rinse it) that will actually make your water bottle dirtier. Keep a separate rag for washing drinking bottles and wring it properly when you’re done.
Yeti’s are also one of the few that are dishwasher safe
That wide mouth is the real big money.
Agreed, but I never put water bottles in the dishwasher and always hand wash them. The soaps they use can leave behind a residue after drying, something I can smell and taste.
Iirc this might have more to do with your water quality being hard/soft or the ph or something, than the soap itself.
It’s quite possible, as I’m on conditioned well water.
I have one of those and it’s the easiest bottle to clean that I have. Takes like 1 min from wet to totally dry. However, it’s not insulated so that may be an issue for them.
I saw an insulated one when i just checked. Price £40.
Edit: Here
Oh nice, missed those.
a bottle brush is more appropiate.
It’s only used for water, so there’s nothing to scrub away. Hot soapy water is enough.
Bacterial and algal growth normally adheres to surfaces, and especially if not removed physically and frequently, builds up. Like the sides of a pond, basin, anything even with constantly running water, never mind mostly stagnant.
Mold = dust/residues + dampness. Clean your bottles, and keep them dry when out of use - you can keep water filled bottles pretty long in the fridge.
My 4 year old bottles stay filled in the fridge; when a bottle travels with me, coming home i wash them with my bottle brush and a small amount of dish soap and either fill them right back up and put them in the fridge again, or i keep the cap off and let them dry thoroughly putting them upside down so droplets can get out. Anything else is just an invitation for mold.
At times I use boiling water plus dish soap after cleaning it with cold water.^(Obviously only with stainless steel and not plastic)
The solution to your problem is not to buy one specific bottle. The solution is to have two separate water bottles, so that you can swap and clean them on your own time.
you can clean them daily, they get black spots
Daily?! I clean mine weekly and I put coffee and milk in them. I drink my coffee by lunch and rinse them out 3x. I turn them upside down and air dry the 2nd half of the day. They’re dried by end of day. Do that 5x a week. Wash on the weekends.
get a non-plastic bottle. plastic is notorious for harboring bacteria, and mold, because they are prone to microscope crevices from forming. probably a metal one. you might want to use soap and hot water for metal containers.
Hard agree. My water bottle is stainless steel. The lid screws off, there’s no complicated nozzle to get clean, you drink from it like a normal bottle. I don’t have a dishwasher, just wash it in hot soapy water, rinse and refill. A bonus is that it takes a lot of punishment - I dropped an expensive plastic one once and it exploded. Also it’s a thermal bottle, so cold drinks stay cold.
FWIW water grows less mould than water with sugar/flavor/etc.
Assuming USA, kleen kanteen, with a simple screw-off cap. Or yeti with those slider caps. Personally as a desk worker my water jug has no cap.
For cleaning, soaking for 20 min or so with hot water and something like unscented oxyclean, powder brewery wash, or a bit of dishwasher powder works very well at removing organic matter - for stainless and glass.
I am very bad at remembering to clean my water bottles regularly, I have about 4 nalgene bottles and a CamelBak in fairly regular rotation, they get left in the car, sometimes with water in them, sometimes empty but rarely totally dry, often for days, weeks, or even moths at a time. I don’t drink water that’s been sitting in my bottles for that long, but I’ve never noticed any weird smells, scum, cloudiness, mold, etc when I go to empty them.
And I can’t say I’ve ever had an issue with mold or any other funkiness in any of my bottles.
And I think a lot of it is that I only put water in my bottles, no flavorings or anything else (except maybe occasionally iodine or other water purification products when I’m camping, which of course is just going to kill anything that would start growing in there otherwise)
I also usually (but not always) fill them with purified water to begin with.
I love brewery wash for my water bottle! Soap or bleach always seemed to give me a funny taste or order. It may have been in my head, but I didn’t like it and it led me to cleaning it less often.
Decided to hit it with StarSan one time it got icky and cleaned it right up with no taste or smell.
I try to run it through the dishwasher more often, but if I put something odd in the bottle or it sat out for a long time, now I StarSan it.
