Anyone have a suggestion on how to clean and dry a hose for a water bladder?
I tend to rinse them and hang them up and forget them. Then they tend to grow all sorts of life forms.
I just got a new CamelBack Omega bladder rig and don’t want to make the same mistake.
I keep mine…
in the freezer!
Clean it after use, blow out the excess water, coil it up and put it in a ziplock baggie, suck out the excess air, and into the freezer it goes.
Holmes
good idea
Of course then I’ll be running around wondering where I left it last.
I was thinking about making something out of a coat hanger with some sort of swab.
I used to…
drop a 1/8" braided poly line down the tube with a small cotton patch threaded through the braid at one end like a bow tie. (Heat melt the end of the small rope to lock the braid) Worked kind of like a rifle cleaning cable. Pull it through and twist the hose while doing so. This will dry the tube quite nicely. Weight the other end of the line to ease feeding it through the tube.
Now I’m just too lazy… and yes, I often forgot where my tubes were when I first started using the freezer!
Holmes
Cleaning kit…
Camelbak makes a cleaning kit that includes a long coil brush for scrubbing out the inside of the tube…
http://www.campmor.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=39162503&memberId=12500226
Ignore the embaressmant
walk into the local drug store, and buy a package of denture cleaning tablets. After a trip, fill the bladder with warm water and a couple of tablets. When they begin to foam, squeeze water through the hose until you smell the “minty fresh aroma”, set the bladder aside and let it soak. I leave mine that way until I refill it for another trip.
Blowing into the drinking hose introduces a myriad of microflora which cause the nasty growths.
Jim