Comparing Brita and Stefani Water Filters

Summary

In this detailed comparison video by Platima Cooks, the performance of various water filter systems, including Brita, Stefani, and homemade systems like 'Big Chungus,' is tested and analyzed. Platima sets up a series of experiments to measure total dissolved solids, electrical conductivity, and other factors to determine the effectiveness of each filter. With engaging commentary, the video offers a comprehensive look into how different filters stack up in terms of providing clean drinking water, while also engaging in some hands-on DIY filter installations.

Highlights

• Platima shares the journey of exploring water filtering systems, introducing fun nicknames like 'Big Chungus' for the homemade filter. 📸
• The video reveals the setup process for multiple filters and includes DIY tips for setting them up under the sink. 🛠️
• Testing distilled water against spring and tap water, distilled water proves to be the purest form, as expected. 🚰
• DIY water filter results show significant potential, yet need careful setup and choice of filters. 🏡
• The video concludes with a comparison between old and new Brita filters, showing significant differences in performance. 🕵️‍♂️

Key Takeaways

• Brita filters show moderate effectiveness in reducing impurities, especially chlorine and heavy metals, but require proper flushing. 🚰
• Stefani's under-sink system, despite its sturdy design, showed mixed results with its default filters but can be improved with custom filters. 🔧
• Big Chungus, the homemade water filter, outperformed commercial filters in removing chlorine and heavy metals. 🏆
• Distilled water remains the purest, with close to zero impurities, as shown in Platima's tests. 💧
• Water testing kits, even cheap ones, provide valuable insights, though results might vary depending on different environmental factors. 🔬

Overview

Platima kicks off the water filter experiment by gathering various filtering systems, including both commercial and homemade options, to run a series of thorough testing. The DIY aspect shines with projects like the 20-liter homemade filter affectionately dubbed 'Big Chungus.'

The heart of the video focuses on detailed water quality testing, using a variety of instruments and methods. Platima takes viewers through the paces of measuring electrical conductivity and dissolved solids, providing insightful commentary and revelations along the way.

Finally, despite some unexpected results and the occasional complexity of the DIY setups, Platima concludes the experiment with an in-depth look at each filter's outcome. Whether it's the barely altered performance of an old Brita or the surprisingly good results from a homemade contraption, viewers gain a clear perspective on what's truly effective for home water filtration.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Setup In the introduction and setup chapter, the speaker begins by expressing thanks to the audience for joining and shares their plan to explore water filtering. Having purchased new equipment, including two water filter jugs – one being 15 years old – and a 'steel spirits feel free thingy', the speaker sets up different water filtering systems. The setup involves observing water in various dishes to examine evaporation.
• 03:00 - 07:00: Installing the Water Filter The chapter describes the speaker's experience with different types of water and water filtration. The speaker talks about having grazed distilled water and a 10-liter jug of spring water. They compare spring water to distilled water and show interest in the jug they purchased. They also discuss a homemade 20-liter filter referred to as 'big chungus,' which uses a 0.2-micron filter that has been glued in.
• 07:00 - 18:00: Testing and Comparing Filters This chapter discusses testing and comparing different types of filters. The narrator describes a setup involving two buckets, one with an attachment at the bottom to facilitate drainage, and a tap installed on the second bucket. The experiment includes using plain tap water as a control and 'worm juice' that has been filtered through a coffee filter to remove solid particles. A low-cost water testing kit from eBay is utilized, although the test card is noted to be damaged, presumably by worms, leading to the necessity of printing a new one. The chapter sets up the premise for evaluating the effectiveness of these filtration methods.
• 18:00 - 23:00: Analyzing Water Samples The chapter 'Analyzing Water Samples' discusses the use of a Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Electrical Conductivity (EC) meter for measuring water quality. It explains that EC provides a more accurate measure, while TDS is an interpretation based on EC. The chapter also mentions the use of a dehydrator to see the material left in various water samples. An example is given of testing vodka for dissolved substances. Finally, the chapter notes the installation of a device under the sink for water analysis.
• 23:00 - 29:00: Concluding Remarks The chapter titled 'Concluding Remarks' outlines an informal and somewhat chaotic inventory or setup, potentially related to a DIY or experimental setup possibly inspired by 'Cody's Lab'. The speaker struggles with a heavy box containing various parts, including a main filter component, and attempts to describe the context or usage of these items. The description reflects a casual, unpolished process typical of a vlog or home experiment.

Comparing Brita and Stefani Water Filters Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey everyone today going to do it a bit differently uh we're looking at water filtering so thanks for dropping in hope you learned something hopefully i learned something but i just bought this today and i got another one of these too because i then went on a water filtering bender so i set up a few things um we've got the new triple banger here the new water filter jug my 15 year old water filter jug the uh steel spirits feel free thingy uh i've got some dishes here because i'm going to sit different types of water in them and let it evaporate
• 00:30 - 01:00 then got standard grazed distilled water i got this uh 10 liters i think yeah 10 liters of spring water compared to distilled water because it's a different process i understand also i just wanted this jug it's pretty cool i've then got what i call big chungus which is my 20 liter homemade filter now this thing essentially just has uh 0.2 micron filter that i glued in there
• 01:00 - 01:30 and then i've kind of got an attachment at the bottom and it drains through into this second bucket that i've put a tap on now we then also have here some plain tap water as a control i've got some worm juice that i just ran through a coffee filter to get all the heavy stuff out we've got a really cheap ebay water testing kit which i'll i mean you can see the worms got to it so the test card wasn't so good so i printed another one out i've then just got a basic uh
• 01:30 - 02:00 uh tds or total dissolve solids and ec electrical conductivity meter that ec is going to be the more accurate tds is just interpretation of that and then i've got dehydrator to dehydrate one of all of these and see what materials left in afterwards and vodka yep that's definitely got stuff in it so first things first we'll be actually installing this one i'm going to install under my sink we'll have a quick look at what's in it there though
• 02:00 - 02:30 doing this cody's lab one-handed style i don't know why does it this is so jank so we've got a box with some bits in it and then oh jesus all right so it's a heavy one hang on there we go and then we've got the main filter part and you've got a few things
• 02:30 - 03:00 in here like the hosing throat tape primer what not now these are a universal 250 mil cartridge so it goes the other way up but you can see this comes with three cartridges in it it's got the first cartridge which it says is your five micron high efficiency carbon that's five micron nominal your carbon sediment filter
• 03:00 - 03:30 there is then activated granular carbon replacement cartridge uh doesn't have a filter setting on it it doesn't have a micron reading on it and then the first one which actually all goes through is a five micron nominal
• 03:30 - 04:00 poly pure extra fine sediment reduction i don't know this or something that's what it comes with but you can see on the box you can actually i don't know there are all the things it comes with that's its rating this is only 146 dollars too so pretty good deal there we go so you can get all these different cartridges uh i've got a 0.2 or 0.5 micron in my big chungus this one comes with a 5 micron so we will compare it but either way when i'm doing brewing at home
• 04:00 - 04:30 i don't know what the filter in this one's like this is the steel spirits easy filter i don't know what it's rated it is carbon so it's going to be like 0.5 or 0.2 i guess but we'll hopefully be able to infer that from testing this but then thinking if we use this to get the chlorine out of the water and then this one didn't like that uh refined it even further i've got very very clean water the filter in this one there's like 56 bucks a pop so
• 04:30 - 05:00 if this water which is 4.50 for 10 liters is just as clear well i'll probably just get that and i get these awesome firm fairly firm containers for camping then otherwise distilled water should be pure in my understanding and this is whatever two bucks fifty three bucks for four liters and then i like having a good water filter anyway this thing i've had for 15 years i haven't changed the filtering god knows how long i think it takes dammit lid
• 05:00 - 05:30 oh yeah one of those filters so you can still get them from the shops they're pretty stock standard i might get another one for it but that's what it does and this little thing this little measuring thing hasn't worked we got a dead little battery so yeah we'll see how the brand new one with the max draw hey that's the same sort i think compares to the really old one with unchanged cartridge and everything else so let's get this installed under the sink see how easy the diy is and i'll get back to it soon alrighty that wasn't
• 05:30 - 06:00 actually too hard uh pretty much to turn off the mains tap and then you put this inline banger in and use thread tape at the top it's got a belt seal at the bottom that's open turn that way is closed these are little um push joints i'll show you in a sec but uh just turn your maze back on and check it quickly before turning everything on and as you can see i've got no drips we've then got this safety uh pressure regulator here and you can see the clips the how the hose goes in here so make sure you get
• 06:00 - 06:30 the inside but you just push the hose in and then push up push the hose in pull it back slightly and then push the clip in and that keeps it in and that goes all the way through the three stages i'm actually completely numbed in didn't realize this doesn't go in line for your existing tap this uh is one of those little side taps as you probably saw so i'm going to leave it separate from here because it's just a rental and uh when i move soon into my place i'll actually fit this in so once it's all plugged in like that which probably took five minutes to read
• 06:30 - 07:00 the manual and ten minutes to do this all up including just getting the tools uh just use monkey wrench to do that bit they're gonna leave it running about 10 minutes i've just got a free hand and this will do what i need anyway um run it for 10 minutes as you can see it's coming through pretty clear but when it first comes out it this is what's coming out it's quite oily i think you can see there and there's a lot of carbon and other stuff in it that just doesn't look great
• 07:00 - 07:30 so we'll probably use that as a test case to filter some other stuff in a bit but got uh about four minutes left i'll keep it going all right it's time to actually get into the science of it it's good it's taken a while to set up and oh i've been waiting for that now first and foremost let's have a look at our old filter now
• 07:30 - 08:00 i'm going to find the right things for this already got big congas uh stephanie isn't that the name of the musician top britain filter oh well actually we have to have our attack control first though so this was our tap water here
• 08:00 - 08:30 let's see what seal that up before make more of a mess see what this razor and i give it a little swirl around as well as you guys had some crap on it but 302 303 304 even 105 all right 302 304 yeah so it's around that mark all right
• 08:30 - 09:00 that's what we'll call correct for here our tap water i thought around the 400 mark so maybe they've just gotten a bit better yeah the old brita filter that hasn't been changed in a long time no difference 302 303 so to be expected let's have a look at the new brita filter have this thing good caution not even a mess
• 09:00 - 09:30 that's a good idea [Music] refill this one britain new oh that's gone up 322 so maybe it needs a bit more of a flush i'm going to make that happen now and we can come back and retest this one in a bit oh that took bloody yeah it just turns
• 09:30 - 10:00 out you got to flush this new brita filter through about five times uh not two before it actually makes a difference so i'm actually even starting to get tired let's power on for science drinking the science juice telling the science method ish so britain you where's me yeah now this is an ec meter which tds model which is electrical conductivity is not
• 10:00 - 10:30 actually testing total dissolved solids properly but there's a reduction so it is doing something and it's not going to remove salt which is primarily what's going to be making it conductive but at least it is filtering something which is the main thing uh now having had a good look at this and you'll be able to see a bit there it doesn't really say much of what it does besides reduced plastic
• 10:30 - 11:00 uh filter and that's it like it's pretty non-descript so i guess don't expect much but then the stefani triple under sync thing granted only came with five micron filters which meant terrible chlorine and that sort of stuff um i ran that through for 20 minutes in the end because it i just didn't trust it as much and i kept getting these higher readings and
• 11:00 - 11:30 see if we still do now yeah so that is still coming through higher so there may be salt or some compound in there that's increasing it what's it taste like okay it tastes a little bit cleaner than normal water but i might change that to like a sediment filter a pre-carbon filter and then like a 2 micron sorry 0.5 or 0.2 micron carbon filter like what i put in big chunks we'll see what that does uh now there may be other benefits to it
• 11:30 - 12:00 too so we'll see that after like the default setup as it says here is removes dirt particulates particles and sediment absorbs chlorine and odors and refines the taste of your water so yeah these these five micron jiggers aren't going to do too much but we can improve on that it supports others so moving moving on let's have a look at the still spirits easy filter
• 12:00 - 12:30 no idea what the micro measurement is and i asked old mate at the brew shop today he didn't know either so i'm hoping we can maybe figure it out that is increased too is that not just crap on here and maybe this reading doesn't mean a thing no all right so yeah 336.
• 12:30 - 13:00 that's that's just strange whatever big chunks so this is running through the 0.02 i'm pretty sure that's the 0.02 it's another 0.02.05 nominal which uh is about one absolute which should still remove a lot but as i said this thing could mean nothing besides salt it's meant for nutraponics hydroponics not this we're just as interesting that with some of the nubrita it does make a slight difference so let's see
• 13:00 - 13:30 yeah now or so higher so maybe there is something like chlorine is an insulator and it's actually reducing the ac if you know let me know in the comments i'd be very very curious so just a few more little things let's grab the spring water such a cool container you know if you get some more of those worth 4.50 just for that container spring water 137 all right
• 13:30 - 14:00 that's good to know give this a little rinsy rinse flick i've then got some distilled water so crack this one good old david grays no relation to the book for a bit of this in now the difference between spring water and mineral water and distilled water distilled water is using a
• 14:00 - 14:30 still so it's evaporating the water only the water's coming off the top and it's re-condensed back into theoretically as pure form let's see what they say one right yeah oh that was off the screen zero zero zero one so yeah there is there is nothing in there so distilled is as clean as it gets or at least it has no salt we'll have to compare a few other
• 14:30 - 15:00 aspects of this let's clean our workspace up slightly and just have a look at what this worm juice comes in at so this is the runoff from my worm farm and as you can see it's black gold this stuff is so good for the garden it doesn't smell great but um get that well i was just curious what was in it like you know with this thing i use this
• 15:00 - 15:30 because i had nutrients to my hydroponics um i've grown a lot of chilies as you know and this thing makes sure it's where it is but where it needs to be but apparently this worm juice is really good too and it turned off uh not getting anything this worm juice is also naturally produced from
• 15:30 - 16:00 all the fruit and vegetables and everything that i didn't that the worms consumed somehow it is zeros it's gonna make sure this isn't stuffing up give it a rinse put it back into the tap water 300 all right give it a rinse i mean maybe there's again something like this that's insulating
• 16:00 - 16:30 just whoa all right she took off there three thousand so yeah there's all your salts that's that's why the plants love all that nutrient now that's too high that'll give you nutrient lock out a lot of plants so you want to mix this down at least two to one if not uh two parts water one for third yeah that's huge three thousand loose change maybe a third there so you're getting down to about a thousand for chilis and
• 16:30 - 17:00 tomatoes that are young 1500 for chilis and tomatoes that are doing good but a lot of things like peas and corn what not kind of 300 to 600 range but yeah all right clearly worm juice is the good stuff now the next thing the second part of the first part was just the ec and that was also learning a bit you know something i don't i don't know figure out what i learned later when i'm less tired and um inebriated because i'm certainly working on that too
• 17:00 - 17:30 the next one is going to be this testing we want to see what's in there lay them out like this and it's really hard to read these instructions they're a bit chewed up but dip a strip into water an immediate uh dip straight into water and something something so immediately for best res results hold strip horizontal horizontally for a few seconds to allow accurate blur compare against color chart all right
• 17:30 - 18:00 so let's do each of these i'm going to do them in order give them a few that is our tap water maybe a little bit too long this is our old brita this is our new brita i'm not saying ow it's mine keep your
• 18:00 - 18:30 hands off my this is the under sink tap stefanie system come on gwen show me how good you are this is the easy filter from steel spirits those little cartridges cost about eight bucks liking some color quick this is big chunks with the 50 something dollar filter in it now just so you know as well that new brita filter cost me 38 bucks um the under tank system was 140
• 18:30 - 19:00 something 148. i also just reloaded one two three four five six one two three four five six all right so i just did big chunks um and now what was that one oh that's the spring water all right cool cool oh you can see some immediate effects in some of these now i've got the distilled water
• 19:00 - 19:30 and then we have worm juice now we have a natural discoloration here anyway so these results might crack i'd also have one more so this big filter which is just found the name of it hang on it's called a mary amex filter or something it's an old one from work that i've just literally ran some water throughout this lying around in the shed you can see it's got a whole pile it's got carbon filter it's got a little particulate
• 19:30 - 20:00 filter you can't see crap all right so yeah it's got a whole pile of layers and it's got a normal particular filter carbon some ceramics and other stuff some more carbons and what's new and yeah i'll just run a bit through it to see what i actually did so if we test the ec of this higher like everything else which is interesting people please tell me why now let's grab one of these strips
• 20:00 - 20:30 and put that now that is an old filter that's been sitting in my ship three or four years and i'm pretty certain we used it more than we needed to in the office before i was retired give that a dunky duck now we can see there has been some very very quick changes with all of these first up if we line them up side by side as best we can this will actually get them more towards
• 20:30 - 21:00 the center without cross contamination this will give us a good idea of what's going on all right so looking at these charts we see the total hardness of the tap water is kind of you know there's a little bit to it as we expected and then the old brita filter somehow seemingly made that better uh took
• 21:00 - 21:30 some more water there took the hardness out that was a little bit harder and then what's that number four is stefanie still got some hardness in it number five is the easy filter is somehow harder still i don't understand big chungus did really well so that's the spring water and then that see i'm just going to make sure that actually got wet with the spring water on it there we go that's the spring water and that's the distilled so you'd expect them to have no hardness um we can see a bit of
• 21:30 - 22:00 discoloration for the free chlorines and the distilled i don't trust that uh because it shouldn't distill so i'm just gonna do one more and just put that right off the side because i realize it might be picking up a little bit of moisture from underneath unfortunately i didn't think that moving them was a bad idea but it obviously is um now we can see the worm juice has maxed out all its colors a lot of hardness going on there
• 22:00 - 22:30 and then the filter from work looks like it's hard to tell it's definitely taken some stuff out so if we just look at that to start with uh looking at all these colors they are very similar now it's advertising since it's meant to remove the chlorine and the fluoride so on here fluoride is the fifth from the bottom so that's going to be that one i believe and
• 22:30 - 23:00 yeah it's a bit aged it hasn't really done much has it and chlorine oh maybe it's done it's done a bit on the chlorine but i'd say other than that it's it's not worth writing home about but you can see over here the distilled water does have a little reading for chlorine um this is this is killing me all right so this is this is the old filter this is funny this is easy this is big chunks this is spring this
• 23:00 - 23:30 is still worm and others all right that should help me a little bit maybe who knows now we can immediately see the the filters the um looks like they did all right the brita filters actually made a bit of a difference so you can see it's reduced the amount of iron and copper that's in there uh the rest all looks the same the ph is adjusted slightly
• 23:30 - 24:00 but yeah it definitely reduced the iron copper and interestingly the old one this might need some more flashing through reduce the chlorine a bit and it had quite an effect on the total hardness so i'll say those brita filters first the cheap you know how you doing sort of filter did pretty good now i'm very confused about this gwen reading here it's definitely had an effect of some sort but i think this really needs to be flushed through or the default filters that it comes
• 24:00 - 24:30 with are designed for really dirty water if you've got rusty pipes algae uh heavy chlorine very hard water something like that might be by default design for that didn't do much though easy filter did nearly nothing in my opinion so these are what you get with your t500 steel spirits kit thing and they remove a lot of flavor uh interestingly they don't seem to remove much else they're meant to clean it up a bit you meant to double distill it really didn't find that it did much
• 24:30 - 25:00 um i thought it did i really thought it did but seeing this it just doesn't and that's kind of disappointing you're better off putting it through a brita filter then you are the easy uh the easy filter from the spirit company and i've used this for half a batch so let's do a plenty of life left and it's quite a clean batch that's double distilled so that's disappointing now big chunks did really well big chungus uh you can see took a lot of the total hardness out of it it removed quite a bit of chlorine but not all of it it is a single filter system anyway i
• 25:00 - 25:30 guess um nearly no iron or copper it removed all of the lead ah the rest of the rings look pretty much the same then worm juice the worm juice is full of everything uh it's very obvious there we don't have to go over it and then the what the hell is that oh the one from the office so yeah this still had a little bit of an effect but not much so i'd maybe use that as a particular filter
• 25:30 - 26:00 um same as same as these i'd say big chungus spring water and distilled water are great it's interesting that spring water seems to have less chlorine and distilled water and same as down here what's that fifth from the bottom is that fluorine that could be necessary though um does it say on here ah this water is purified by deionization the name distilled water is not intended to describe the process of purification so that would be why all right so the
• 26:00 - 26:30 spring water naturally doesn't contain any chlorine or fluoride fluoride but the distilled water does have a bit come across with the deionization process i'm very happy with big chunks though uh that that's the best result here as far as filtration goes this i reckon we could make better than big chunks we that filter from this can go in here so we can put a particulate filter a pre-carbon filter
• 26:30 - 27:00 like a particular fill is going to be a five five-ish or maybe even not even a micro measurement no i've got good water here so i'll probably put a five micron and then a one micron and then the 0.2 micron and really clean that up um i of course can't pump spirits through it i need the setup over here to actually do that with but for the spirits i'm very happy with that now last test that i'm going to do then is all these are going to be put into the dehumidifier
• 27:00 - 27:30 and uh dehydrator sorry you know what i'm not even going to bother we can see from here what's going to have materials left and what's not this this is cheap these are like 10 bucks on ebay or from your local spa shop it gives us a really really good idea of what's going on i think so i'm not going to bother with the easy filter that is going to be a particular filter essentially same as this thing and i'm going to focus on big chunky and that one so these i will
• 27:30 - 28:00 use for my brewing this will be the water to mix it down a bit and then i'll filter the spirits through that to get the best result and of course these will still live in the fridge i'll probably put the old one out in the garage leave the new one in the fridge that's it for me folks i have if you have any input on anything i did wrong here which there's bound to be a lot of or any information on why some of the things have a higher electrical conductivity i'd love to know that'd be really good now if you got bored at any point let me know i want to make my videos a little bit more
• 28:00 - 28:30 interesting but i do all sorts of different for all different people so if you're into food you may not be into this this kind of edges on food and cooking and whatnot but yeah it's uh see the hino there it's personal preference and i enjoy it so i hope you do too i appreciate you being here like subscribe comment all the rest until next time take it easy
• 28:30 - 29:00 you