Gear Review: GRAYL Filtration Cup

I almost never pack water when going out on a fishing adventure, unless I absolutely have to. Be that a couple of hours out on my local trout creek or a multi-night wilderness backpacking trip. I feel there’s simply no reason to lug the extra weight if the water I’m fishing is relatively clean.

Instead, I choose to bring tablets, filter straws, or most frequently, bottles with filter straws like the Katadyn MyBottle Purifier. While these items DO get the job done, most just don’t work well enough in my opinion. It takes an incredible amount of energy to suck just a tiny bit of water through the filter — never quite quenching your thirst if you’re craving a couple of gulps of water.

A new company called GRAYL has just introduced their Filtration CUP, and in my opinion, the product is groundbreaking in this category. Instead of sucking tiny bits of water through a straw, you simply scoop water up in the cup, plunge the filter slowly through the water, twist back in the cap, flip the cover and bam, you can guzzle the entire 16 ounces – just like a cup of water. No filter straw required… Watch the video – it does an excellent job of diagraming how it works.

I’ve used the product a handful of times and only once in the field thus far, but I have to say I’m very impressed. The only drawback that I can find at this point is the weight of the cup. It’s not exactly light at 19.6 ounces. The company did tell me that they are in the process of developing lighter plastic models for backpackers, etc. I will still be taking my steel cup backpacking this summer, just for the record. It’s not that heavy…

GRAYL gives you two filters options. The G3+ filter is faster to plunge and costs $19.95. It gets rid of nasties like bacteria, protozoa, and impurities like certain heavy metals and some industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals. The G3+ Purifier costs $39.95, is slower than the filter, but has two layers of filter media that will remove SARS, hepatitis A, rotovirus, etc., This is definitely worth the investment if you do a lot of international travel, or visit places where water quality is really unknown. Not a bad idea for disaster preparation either.

I’ll update you as I continue to use the filter, but am extremely impressed with this product and at $69.95 feel that it’s a true bargain considering what it does.