I purchased an insulated Klean Kanteen water bottle in the summer of 2015. This was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made and it’s possibly my favorite item that I own.
Not only will an insulated water bottle keep your beverages warm or cold for up to ~12 hours, they are also BPA free, will help to reduce your waste (no more disposable water bottles), and will encourage you to drink more water.
When you think of all the benefits it’s easy to see why purchasing a nice water bottle is worth the cost.
Choosing a Klean Kanteen Water Bottle
After reading way too many reviews and gathering feedback from friends and family, I decided to purchase a Klean Kanteen Insulated Stainless Steel Bottle With Leak Proof Cap (20-Ounce) Water Bottle. As you may have noticed, that is a mouthful of an item name (no pun intended!).
Klean Kanteen offers several different options to choose from such as color, bottle size, lid opening/ mouth size, lid type, and insulated or non-insulated. While options are great, sometimes having this many for an item as simple as a water bottle can be overwhelming.
Before we get to the review of the water bottle I will help you understand why I decided to purchase the Klean Kanteen I did.
Color
In the spirit of keeping things simple and neutral, I decided to purchase a brushed stainless Klean Kanteen. While this was a relatively easy choice for me, I was strongly considering the Granite Peak color.
Great, who really cares what color I decided on? Isn’t that a choice that will come down to personal preference and won’t affect the functionality of the product?
That’s what I thought when I decided on the brushed stainless color, but after purchasing a Wild Grape Klean Kanteen for my significant other, I soon realized that not all Klean Kanteens are made equal.
Everything was great for the first few months, but after daily use, we noticed that the colored coating was starting to chip off the water bottle. This is something I hadn’t even considered when making the purchase, but after reading several reviews I realized that this was a common and recurring problem.
This makes the water bottle look terrible, could potentially get paint chips on your dishes or food, and essentially reverts the water bottle back to the brushed stainless look (if you can remove all of the paint which can be VERY difficult). For this reason, I now recommend the brushed stainless color to all of my friends. There’s nothing worse than buying a $20 – $40 water bottle that looks destroyed after just a few weeks or months of use.
Size
Klean Kanteen offers a variety of water bottle sizes ranging from 5oz to 64oz (yes, the 5oz bottle is for babies). Choosing the size of your next water bottle will largely come down to your lifestyle and expected uses of the item.
Are you going to use it for daily casual use, or for more specialized uses such as exercising or camping?
For daily casual use, I recommend a 12oz or 20oz bottle. Anything over a 20oz starts to get bulky and discourages you from carrying it around. The 12oz and 20oz bottles fit into the “standard” water bottle holder. This means the cupholder in your car, the water bottle rack on your bicycle, and essentially any basic cupholder is designed to fit both of these water bottles. Both of these sizes will provide you with a suitable amount of water if you’re going to be near a faucet to refill.
For more specialized uses of the Klean Kanteen, I recommend the 32oz or 64oz. These are big water bottles with even better insulation properties than the smaller sizes! They’re perfect for hiking, overnight trips, camping, or any occasion that you won’t have access to clean drinkable water for an extended amount of time. These water bottles will not fit into standard cup holders but can be attached to your gear with carabiners, or easily tossed into a car or boat.
Lid Opening or Mouth Size
The lid diameter or “mouth” of a water bottle is the opening that you drink out of or screw your cap onto. This feature may seem rather trivial, but after thorough consideration, there are significant differences between the opening diameter sizes.
Klean Kanteen offers just two opening diameter options, a 1.75 inch opening diameter or a 2.125 inch diameter. The water bottle that I purchased has a wide or 2.125 inch opening diameter and the water bottle I purchased for my significant other has a small or 1.75 inch opening diameter. I’m very happy with my choice and after discussing the different options I’ve come up with a summary of the pros and cons of each.
Small Lid
Pros
- Provides more control when drinking from the water bottle and prevents spilling
- Fits 5 different Klean Kanteen cap options (7 if you include the baby caps)
Cons
- May “gurgle” or restrict water flow when quickly drinking
- Increases the difficulty of cleaning the water bottle
- Certain ice cubes may be a tight fit
Wide Lid
Pros
- Easily fits ice cubes and can be filled directly from an ice dispenser
- Will not restrict water flow while drinking quickly
- Easier to clean than the 1.75 Inch Opening Diameter
Cons
- Only fits 3 different Klean Kanteen cap options
- Easy to spill while drinking
Klean Kanteen Lid Types
When I purchased my Klean Kanteen I glossed over the different cap types and didn’t put much thought into my decision. After over a year and a half of use, I’ve realized that this may have been a mistake (albeit a small one since a new cap costs significantly less than the water bottle itself).
Klean Kanteen currently offers 7 cap types (2 of which are designed for infants) that are compatible with the small lid and 3 cap types that are compatible with the large lid. Since I don’t have experience with every lid option, I will provide a quick summary of each.
Small Lid Types
The caps that are compatible with the small diameter opening are the Loop Cap, Sport Cap 3.0, Steel Loop Cap, Bamboo Cap, SwingLok Cap, Kid Sippy Cap, and the Baby Knipple.
The Loop Cap and Sport Cap 3.0 both have a small loop for easy transportation but are made of plastic that will come into contact with the liquid inside your Klean Kanteen. This isn’t a big deal for me since the liquids won’t be soaking into the plastic and will only touch it for a few seconds at a time. The Sport Cap 3.0 features a silicon spout and valve which provides one-handed operation and ensures that you’ll never need to take the cap off to have a drink.
The Steel Loop Cap and Bamboo Cap are great options if you don’t want your liquids to come into contact with plastic, but neither of them are recommended for use with warm beverages. This is a dealbreaker for me since I like to put tea into my Klean Kanteen, but if you’re planning on using it for primarily cold or room temperature liquids this is a great choice. The difference between the bamboo cap and the steel loop cap is mainly cosmetic, and the top portion of the cap has a bamboo insert.
The SwingLok Cap is more of a niche cap that specializes in it’s all stainless steel design, and the ability to turn a Klean Kanteen into a growler (okay, maybe not that niche). This cap will scratch colored Klean Kanteen’s so it is only recommended for use with the brushed stainless color. It’s bulkier than the other caps mentioned but great if you’re looking for an airtight seal.
The Kid Sippy Cap and the Baby Knipple cap are just as they sound and are designed for infants.
Wide Lid Types
The caps that are compatible with the wide diameter opening are the Wide Loop Cap, Wide Flip D-Ring Cap, and the Cafe Cap 2.0.
The Wide Loop Cap and Wide Flip D-Ring Cap caps are both made from BPA-free plastic, but one is vastly superior in my opinion, and that is the Wide Flip D-Ring Cap. This cap is a much better choice because it has a “flip down” functional loop that can easily be attached to a carabiner.
When you need it, it’s there, and when you don’t you can flip it down and hide it within the footprint of the cap. I can’t really think of any benefit that the Wide Loop Cap has in comparison, other than that it’s always ready to be picked up by the loop, which I find myself doing rather frequently.
The Cafe Cap 2.0 is the only cap in the Klean Kanteen product offering that is designed like a standard coffee thermos lid. This cap features a twisting mechanism that lets you drink out of a small opening within the bed of the cap. This is an ideal choice if you will mostly be drinking warm liquids from your water bottle.
Insulated vs Non-Insulated
I personally use an insulated water bottle for my daily carry, but there are instances where either type of water bottle will have the upper hand.
Klean Kanteen’s insulated water bottles have a double-wall vacuum seal that’s able to keep liquids cold for 40+ hours and warm for 12+ hours. In my experience, this is exaggerated but not that far off. My 20oz Klean Kanteen is able to hold ice for approximately 15 hours and will keep liquids very warm for around 6 to 8 hours.
You may be wondering what the downside is to a water bottle with such amazing insulation qualities. The answer is that insulated water bottles are more expensive, take up more space, and are heavier than their non-insulated counterparts. If you don’t have a need for keeping your liquids either warm or cold for an extended period of time I definitely recommend a non-insulated water bottle.
Conclusion
Klean Kanteen makes fantastic water bottles that will last for several years if you provide them with even the slightest amount of care. I haven’t used a disposable water bottle since I purchased my Klean Kanteen water bottle and have for the most part quit using glasses at home.
Carrying a water bottle with you will encourage you to drink more water and promote a healthier lifestyle. The environmental impact of not using disposable drinking containers is enormous, and studies have shown that the average person uses 168 disposable water bottles per year but recycles just 38.
Klean Kanteen water bottles are extremely versatile and can cover a wide array of needs and uses. My preferred model is the Brushed Stainless 20oz Klean Kanteen Water Bottle.
If you have a few extra bucks to spend you should 100% purchase a Klean Kanteen water bottle and do your part to make the world a better place.
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