Fire by hand drill

Fire by hand drill

Friday 2 September 2011

Purification of water by boiling in a beer bottle.

Hi,

I was out for a wander today and was quite thirsty so decided to get a drink from a stream in the forest. I wasnt going to drink the water straight from the stream and risk an upset stomach so had to boil it.

I had a scout about and soon found an old beer bottle.
I washed it out in the stream because a small ecosystem had developed inside. I used a stick to loosen the dirt then shook it.
Then i filled it with water.
So i got a small fire going quickly behind a fallen tree root plate.
Tinder of grass and bracken.
I let the water heat a bit and then put a larger log on the fire and put the bottle into the fire. To sudden and it might crack. It took about 10 minutes or less to boil up to a good rolling boil which i maintained for several minutes.

A little video of the water boiling is above. Make sure that the bubbles are coming from all of the water and not just the top. The heat will kill everything. If there is organic matter in it, this can kind of sheild the bugs so boil it longer to compensate for this.

I then let it cool for a while and at the same time some of the organic matter sank to the bottom. I could have filtered it through my t-shirt but i am not to fussy.

Then down the hatch.

Some Sorrel growing by the stream.

I made a bottle holder from a mature bracken frond.


Simply bend it and bend it again and then trap the bottle neck in the bend. easy.

Lit my fire next to a woodmouse cone processing factory.
I also found this which is never good. Ergot, a very dangerous fungi which grows on cereal. Pic is poor sorry.

4 comments:

John G said...

Nicely done! Too bad it's so easy to find trash these days, but I like your improvisation.

Gorges Smythe said...

Did you set it in the stream to cool it, or let it cool in the air?

outdoorni said...

Good post. Enjoyed reading. Cheers.

Mark

Andrew Boe said...

Hi, thanks.

I let it air cool as the cold stream may have cracked the bottle.