Does anyone know of a good way to clean Camelbak hose?

[calicotraveler]

I hadn't used my Camelbak in awhile and when I did recently I noticed that the water in it had an off flavor. It looks OK but I just don't remember it having an unusual taste before. I always rinse and hang it to dry with a few wadded up paper towels inside. I'm thinking that the tube may be the problem as it doesn't look as sparkly clean as it did in the past. I am afraid their is some type of gunge growing in there. Any ideas on how to clean it? There really isn't time before my trip to Glacier to order one of those Camelbak cleaning kits. I'm wondering if I should use bleach, baking soda, or something else in that tube. Any ideas??

[ND Sol]

I have read that the denture cleaning tablets work quite well. Mix up a solution and put it in your tube. In fact, put it in the rest of your bag as well.

[Todd]

http://walking.about.com/od/hydration/t ... kclean.htm

A number of solutions including the denture tablets.

[calicotraveler]

Thanks for the info! You people on this forum are great. I'll let you know what I do and what sucess I have with this.

[calicotraveler]

Ok the Camelbaks are now sparkly clean! I was able to find a Camelbak cleaning kit at Academy Sports in the biking department. I had to buy the whole kit but all that I really needed was the long wire with the pipecleaner on the end to clean the tube. Anyway that was just what I needed to get the job done. I ran water with baking soda in it through the bag and hose and then scrubbed the whole thing and followed up with several clear water rinses. A quick quality control check showed that the water coming out of the Camelbak now tastes like water, not funk, slime, mildew or whatever else was culturing in that tube. Thanks for the help on this forum!