Klean Kanteen Review

Likes
We found the Klean Kanteen to be extremely durable. Klean Kanteens will dent rather easily, but beyond that they’re very difficult to break. The plastic tops will crack or break just as easily as any other type of plastic, but they are easily replaceable. One tester dropped his bottle 100 feet, replaced the shattered top, and continued using it. It seems that the only way to render the Klean Kanteen unusable would be to bend the neck of the bottle in a way that would make it impossible to get a top in there. The Klean Kanteen comes with a wide variety of lids, from carabiner-compatible loops to “Sport” sippy-tops. The tops are well designed but do not seem to last as long as the Nalgenes’. The plastic protrusions tend to crack and shatter well before the bottle itself comes to the end of its life. One of the unique advantages of the Klean Kanteen is its ability to be used as a cooking vessel. In a pinch it can be used to cook or boil water. However, the heat capacity of stainless steel comes with drawbacks. On cold nights, you can fill a Nalgene with hot water and keep it in your sleeping bag, but the Klean Kanteen will get too hot to do so comfortably or safely. The plastic does a much better job of insulating liquids.

Dislikes
Most water filters and water-bottle accessories are designed to fit the wide-mouth Nalgene. In response, Klean Kanteen began producing wide-mouth sized bottles, but we found them to be less reliable than their original design. The new bottles are prone to leaking because of a thin, poorly attached O-ring that is very easy to dislodge.

Best Application

Hiking/Car Camping/Daily use: Klean Kanteen. When weight is not a concern, we prefer the Klean Kanteen.
Canoe Tripping: I used and broke a number of Nalgenes over several years of canoe tripping before switching to the Klean Kanteen. The bottles weathered the summer well, with significant denting but they remained completely functional. The Klean Kanteen’s durability serves it well for the rigors of multi-month canoe tripping.

Value
Klean Kanteens are more expensive than a comparably sized Nalgene, but they make up for it in durability.

Other Versions
The Klean Kanteen comes in a variety of sizes, including 12, 18, 27, 40, and 64oz and in insulated and wide-mouth versions. We found at the O-ring seal, which keeps the bottle from leaking, comes off very easily in the wide-mouth version. The insulated version is useful, but has similar problems with the o-ring. It's also nearly twice as heavy as a comparably sized single-walled klean kanteen.
With the bottles come a variety of caps, including a "sport" cap (pictured in the title photo), a "loop" cap (carabiner compatible), and flat top. For the wide mouth versions, there are "loop" caps, folding D-ring caps, and "cafe" caps.