How long does water stay 'fresh' in the bottle?

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The Big Lebowski

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 11, 2010
2,320
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Sunny Wales!
Thanks guys. So tap water re-filled into a 5l container could confidently left for a week if used in a kelly kettle for teas etc.

Sounds good.

Tesco's do a 5 litre decent quality (good handle rather) bottle of mineral water for about 90p thats sealed and would be good for a couple of years no-doubt!

Open, you would be looking at it being used in two days, maybe quicker. 3 Litres does me 24 hours.

Beer sounds a good option too though :)
 

treadlightly

Full Member
Jan 29, 2007
2,692
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Powys
I've used bottles of mineral water over several days and a jerry can of tapwater for several weeks without ill effects. Both were stored in cool shady spots.
 
Ive heard a few times of collodial silver being used in large water tanks when on expeditions (the type that are built into landrovers) to keep it fresh (not for initial purification).

If I were leaveing a bottle of water for a while I would just add something like a half dose of Iodine to prevent any baterial growth, but aslong as the water was purified to start with and you followed good hygene practice i.e. not touching the threads or drinking directly from it and keeping it in a dark place/opaque bottle to prevent algal growth then you should be fine.
 

Rabbitsmacker

Settler
Nov 23, 2008
951
0
41
Kings Lynn
never paid much attention to canteens of water, steralise them every so often and refresh water from the tap each time i go out. leave a canteen in the car and rarely change it and its fine. i thought the army cached water supplies in jungles and similar, how long do they leave those supplies and what sort of container are they in i wonder. the black plastic jerry cans maybe?
 

R.Lewis

Full Member
Aug 23, 2009
1,098
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Cambs
One of the reasons bottled water has a best before date is not because of the water going off but because of the plastic bottle degrading and potentially leaching chemicals into the water. At least thats what I heard!
 

Beardy

Need to contact Admin...
Nov 28, 2010
162
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UK
Left a clear plastic bottle of water half full in the boat at work next to the window, came back 2 weeks later, it had some algae and green stuff in the bottom of it. I was actually quite surprised, not seen that before, not that I was relying on it being fine or anything. There again it was pretty warm as it was sunny and all the windows were shut and the bottle had been used again and again for quite a while and certainly was about as far from sterile as you could get at the beginning.

In addition to all the stuff others have said I would have thought that keeping it cool would help a lot, bugs seem to multiply more the warmer they get. Find a low thick bough or a spot under a rock or something to keep it from both sun and warmth, pop a few puritabs in before leaving it so it's as sterile as can be, and I'm sure it'll be fine unless we are talking of leaving it weeks and weeks.

As for long term caches as someone has mentioned before, I think I would probably put more stock in gettng a water filter and gather my own as needed than hope that the water was still good and not allowed any of the surrounding humidity in after an extended period in a tropical setting. If you were prepared to dig it in to where you might find a relatively consistently cool layer in the soil then I guess it could work but it seems a lot of effort when you could just go find a stream?
 

bikething

Full Member
May 31, 2005
2,568
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West Devon, Edge of Dartymoor!
filtered thro volcanos for 2 million years

use by next Feb :lmao:
not only that... :rolleyes:

vegiewater.jpg
 

taws6

Nomad
Jul 27, 2007
293
2
Anglia
Check out the new 'Drink Safe' bottle, it seems to have sovled all water problems, for a reasonable cost ;)

http://www.drinksafe-systems.co.uk/

And to directly answer OP 1st post, a few litres of stashed water will be fine for a few days, best advise is probably to store it out of sunlight, and store it in numerous bottles to reduce using opened bottles if worried, and mabey have a couple of stores in the same vacinity. Just make sure you can find them again!
 
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rik_uk3

Banned
Jun 10, 2006
13,320
24
69
south wales
Two litre bottles of water in Tesco is 17p these days, not worth cleaning out your canteen or water bladder at that price.
 

AussieVic

Forager
Jan 24, 2011
160
5
Victoria, Australia
I've travelled for 3 months with a 20L jerry filled with tap water (in the 4wd). It was still fine at the end of the trip.
I've also filled jerries to store water over summer (6 months) in a cupboard - no issues.

I think that stashing a few bottles for a week or two is fine, but if possible take the precautions suggested by others, you don't want to rely on it being OK just because its worked for others. Try and keep the containers out of the sun, keep them as dark and cool as possible and add some sanitizing agent (iodine or chlorine etc).

If you use bottled water, check the useby date too
 
May 6, 2010
123
0
uk
www.coastalsurvival.com
Hi

Sorry if this has all ready mentioned; Citricidal, grapefruit seed extract was brought to my attention by a hitch hiker I picked up. Really interesting guy, who helped pass the time on the long journey back from Cornwall a few years ago, we chatted about our exploits hunting with dogs, to his passion for homing pigeons. The info on the citricidal was dually noted. A few drops added to a gallon of water for long term storage, to a drop or two in a glass of water to check internal infestation and infections, food poisoning etc.

I am no expert on it, but have a bottle in my bug out pack, just in case!

Hope this helps?

Fraser
 

ged

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jul 16, 2009
4,976
13
In the woods if possible.
... Sorry if this has all ready mentioned; Citricidal ...

It hasn't been mentioned in this thread until now.

... grapefruit seed extract was brought to my attention by a hitch hiker I picked up. Really interesting guy, who helped pass the time ...

And that's about all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapefruit_seed_extract

A few drops added to a gallon of water for long term storage, to a drop or two in a glass of water to check internal infestation and infections, food poisoning etc.

Or use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzethonium_chloride instead, which (a) is apparently the only thing in the product that has any anti-microbial effect and (b) doesn't come from grapefruit.

Hope this helps?

It looks like just another dodgy snake oil thing promoted by people who are either unscrupulous, or nutcases, or possibly both.
 

Martyn

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 7, 2003
5,252
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staffordshire
www.britishblades.com
Check out the new 'Drink Safe' bottle, it seems to have sovled all water problems, for a reasonable cost ;)

http://www.drinksafe-systems.co.uk/
Ohhh - and exactly how have they solved those problems, care to share? Drinksafe dont.

I'll let you into a secret, the drinksafe is a bog standard lump of charcoal in a bottle. But they dont even tell you that.

And to directly answer OP 1st post, a few litres of stashed water will be fine for a few days, best advise is probably to store it out of sunlight, and store it in numerous bottles to reduce using opened bottles if worried, and mabey have a couple of stores in the same vacinity. Just make sure you can find them again!
Pure water (di-hydrogen monoxide), has nothing to go off. If it is sterile, it's good for ever or until the sterile seal is breached. How does sunlight make water go bad? Sunlight (or ultraviolet light) will itself act as a purifier. One method of sterilising water is to put it in a plastic bottle and store it in direct sunlight.

No offence, but I'd suggest you learn a bit more about water purification and treatment before recommending products off the back of a label and practices that seem a good idea in your head.
 
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ged

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jul 16, 2009
4,976
13
In the woods if possible.
Pure water (di-hydrogen monoxide), has nothing to go off. If it is sterile, it's good for ever or until the sterile seal is breached.

Or until a sufficiently harmful substance enters the water in sufficient quantity to cause harm. Many plastics for example will permit many substances to diffuse through them, so if you were to store a plastic container full of water in your garage next to a plastic can of petrol you might find that the petrol taints the water quite quickly. Also many plastics contain harmful substances which can leach out of the container into the contents over long periods of time. Polycarbonates were famous for that quite recently.

How does sunlight make water go bad?

It doesn't. It just helps things grow that are already in the water if it isn't sterile. Green algae being amongst the most obvious, because they're, er, green. :)

Sunlight (or ultraviolet light) will itself act as a purifier. One method of sterilising water is to put it in a plastic bottle and store it in direct sunlight.

All correct. Strong enough sunlight will kill anything. However the Earth's atmosphere filters the sunlight very effectively (otherwise we'd all be dead already) and the sunlight needs to be sufficiently strong that it will kill the organisms in the water, rather than promote their growth. We could probably do with more of that sort of sunlight in the UK. :)
 

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