Cleaning CamelBak Podium Bottle Caps

 I pulled a bottle out of storage and found the cap had a lot of black mold growing in the valve/mouthpiece. Even the shortest Google Safari will reveal that this is a very, very common problem with tons of complaints with the old bottle cap valves. The latest caps, which are made to come apart (and do) easily so they can be cleaned solves this problem, but creates another -  the new caps protrude deeply into the bottle itself, reducing volume, especially if you're trying to put as much ice in the bottle as possible. 

As a result, many people, myself included, still use the old caps whenever possible, and personally, I think either CamelBak needs to make a new, non-intrusive cap, or be sued for mislabeling their bottles. This says nothing about the new concave shape of the caps being an aerodynamic disaster. 

Anyway, enough griping, I'm here to tell you how you can clean the old-style bottle cap valves - with a Water-Pic, maybe, OR, an electric toothbrush, Optic White toothpaste, and a lot of rubbing. I also want to reassure anyone who is anxious about taking the valve apart that you can safely disassemble EVERYTHING in the old style valves, just be careful to warm up the silicone mouthpiece with hot water before trying to pull it off. Take pics as you disassemble if you like so you know how to put it back together.

WARNING: Be sure to work over a sink with a tight filter of some sort installed in the drain. These are small parts! 

Assuming there isn't any mold inside the valve body itself, you can clean between the large silicone mouthpiece and inner valve body with a Water-Pic. It's going to spray water all over the place, but it has enough pressure to get between the mouthpiece and the inner valve body, so it will work. You can use plain water, or mix up a 3-4X isotonic saline solution to use in the machine. 

 If you use a salt mixture, you MUST rinse the entire machine out thoroughly because if the salt crystallizes inside the pump, it's ruined. Just put hot tap water in the reservoir, start the Water-Pic, and let it run for 10 seconds. Then put the pic end in the sink and let the rest of the fresh water drain through the machine. Problem solved!

Main slide valve 2 above is Open, above is Closed.

If your inner valve is moldy, like mine was, more invasive cleaning is required. You need to remove the  valve from the cap, disassemble and clean the inner valve body.

I use either the glass part of a basting ball, corkscrew cover, or end of a plastic stirring spoon to pop the valve off the top of the On/Off twisting valve body, which you can do before or after pulling the silicone cover off. The valve body itself has 4 parts...

1. The translucent body
2. The blue squirt valve body (this is what started the revolution in bottle tech)
   
3. The translucent valve body retainer that snaps over one end of the body
4. An O-Ring the body rides against the On/Off cap slide valve
   

(More pics to come, promise, but my toothbrush battery is dead, and I have another bottle I will photograph when cleaning)

Optic White toothpaste has 3 very helpful ingredients - hydrogen peroxide, glycerine and a very fine grit.  Peroxide is a bleach, which kills mold, mildew, bacteria, and probably COVID-19. The stuff you buy in brown bottles is a 3% solution in pure water. A friend reports it was used at 80%+ concentrations to leach uranium out of ore. We're not going THERE, but soaking these parts overnight in 3% peroxide in the bottle had no effect AFAICT, so Optic White is probably a 6-10% solution. Whatever, it works.

Glycerine is a clear, oily substance that helps your fingers move deftly over these translucent, silicone parts while rubbing with the fine grit to remove stubborn black mold and the stains it creates while lubing and protecting the part.

The grit makes Optic White work like SoftScrub, but does so while protecting the silicone in a way Bleach (sodium hypochlorite) doesn't. Working with the part on a hard surface is helpful in keeping the toothpaste against the part you're cleaning, while pressing down with the toothbrush. I used a new soft-bristle Braun brush, but use whatever you like. Less pressure is usually more effective as it keeps the ends of the brush engaged, not the edges. 

All of this is done with food-safe ingredients, which should be obvious because you can put all this stuff in  your mouth and probably do all the time. The result? Bottles that are not only clean, but minty fresh! ;)

The 4 parts of the Inner-Valve assembly laid out in order