Best Gravity Water Filter System

Berkefeld products by Doulton are manufactured in an EPA-registered establishment.

British Berkefeld Ultra Sterasyl Filters are NSF Certified.

What is NSF Certification of  Water Filter Systems?
In the United States, NSF International (formerly the National Sanitation Foundation) works to protect consumers by providing third-party testing, written standards, and validation of products available to the public.

The table below is a visual to help consumers understand the gravity water filter space.

Understanding NSF 42, 53, 372 and 401 Codes

• NSF/ANSI 42 – Aesthetic Effects
• NSF/ANSI 53 – Health Effects
• NSF/ANSI/CAN 372 – Lead Content
• NSF/ANSI/CAN 401 – Emerging Compounds / Incidental Contaminants

See Doulton’s NSF Certifications

See NSF Standards for Filtration Systems

The red dye is extremely easy to remove and is not an actual indication of filter performance or contaminant removal.

Eric Roy, PhD & Analies Dyjak, M.A.

In this demonstration, red food coloring is added to water and passed through a filter, where it comes out clear. Often times this demonstration is done in a “side by side” manner against another water filter that does not remove the red coloring from the water. This demonstration suggests to the consumer that:

1. If a water filter can remove red dye, it’s also removing dangerous contaminants. In scientific terms, they’re suggesting that red dye is a “proxy” or “surrogate” for dangerous contaminants.
2. Water filters that do not remove the red color are not as effective as water filters that do remove red food coloring.

Is Red Food Coloring a Representative Proxy or Surrogate for Contaminants in Drinking Water?

Absolutely not. Identifying a representative proxy/surrogate requires that a credible testing body (e.g NSF/ANSI) has actually done experiments to validate it. An example of a representative surrogate test is NSF/ANSI Standard 53 for VOCs, where the certifying bodies have shown (through testing) that chloroform is an effective surrogate for roughly 50 VOCs. No such testing has been done (or to our knowledge attempted) for red food coloring. It goes without saying, if the visual removal of red food coloring was a representative surrogate for water filter performance, credible water filter companies would not be spending millions of dollars on research, development, testing, and evaluation.

Are Water Filters That Do Not Remove Red Food Coloring Less Effective At Removing Dangerous Chemicals?

Absolutely not. For example, one of the brands that prominently markets using the red dye test was part of a water filter evaluation study conducted by Duke and NC State University, and failed miserably. Conversely, various products that do not remove red food coloring were effective in filtering “hard-to-filter” PFAS from the challenge solutions. So while the brand effectively removes food-safe red dye, it isn’t able to remove PFAS. In fact, higher levels of PFAS were detected in the filtered water because the filtration media was likely oversaturated.

Is There a Quick and Easy Way To See if My Filter is Working?

While we wish there was an at-home test that could determine if your filter is doing its job, that unfortunately isn’t the case. Every home in America would test their water on a regular basis if at-home test kits provided actual information about water quality. If you want to test for contaminants, you’ll need to send a water sample to an accredited laboratory and test for a range of contaminants. This can cost thousands of dollars and doesn’t provide immediate results. The best way to ensure that you’re using an effective product is to buy products from companies that use third party testing & certifications.

Is there is a plastic filter with activated alumina sitting in your clean filtered water?

Our Stainless Steel gravity-fed systems can be used with our Ultra Fluoride ceramic candle that filters fluoride. Installed in upper chamber of Berkefeld System (Unlike other systems that need a filter up top and a fluoride removal filter in the bottom chamber)

Why would you use a gravity filtration system?

Because they should remove bacteria like Micro Biological Klebsiella and Micro Biological E-coli

Why would anyone purchase a gravity system that doesn’t remove bacteria? 

The gravity filtering process is slow so it can remove bacteria. The benefit of a gravity system is that it’s portable and it can remove bacteria, pfas, microplastics, etc. 

What Black Carbon Filters Won’t Remove

Carbon filters will not remove bacteria, calcium and magnesium (hard water), fluorides, nitrates, chlorides and many other inorganic chemicals.