Hello, everybody, welcome to the channel.
Today, I'm going to show you how I clean my down sleeping bag.
In this video I'm going to be cleaning this by hand, just so that I can do this very delicately
and gently because I don't want to be yanking on this thing or throwing it in an aggressive
washing machine that could potentially rip it.
This is not something that I do often.
I probably should clean my sleeping bag more than I do.
But this has probably been, you know, at least 100 nights or so without me cleaning it.
And the only reason that I really want to clean it now is I've noticed it's just not
keeping me warm like it used to.
And even if you hold up this sleeping bag with light behind it, you can see just areas
where the down is not there, right.
So it's just not performing as well as it could and should and so that's kind of how
I know it's time for me to give it a clean.
So I'm going to show you the process of how I do it in this video.
Keep in mind it's always a good idea just to check any special instructions from the
manufacturer of your particular sleeping bag, but chances are it's going to be very similar
or the same as what I'm going to show you today.
So without further ado, let's get started.
Alright, so I'm going to clean my sleeping bag in my bathtub.
So the first thing that I'm going to do is just make sure that the tub is clean.
I'm just using simple Dr. Bronner's unscented baby soap for this just to ensure the tub
is clean and free of any scentes or things from other shampoos and body washes.
To actually wash the sleeping bag.
I am going to use the Granger's down wash.
It is specifically made for cleaning down jackets and down sleeping bags and so that's
what you want when you're cleaning your sleeping bag is something that is specifically made
for that so don't use regular laundry detergent here.
I think one of the hardest parts of cleaning a down sleeping bag is just getting all of
the air out of it.
So to help that process along I actually stuffed my sleeping bag into its stuff sack to get
most of the air out before I get it wet.
Don't have to do this step but I found that it really does help get the air out a little
bit faster.
Next, turn on the water to a comfortable warm temperature and start getting the sleeping
bag wet.
Once the sleeping bag is wet, you have to be so so careful with your movements.
You have to be really patient and you do not want to yank on the sleeping bag.
Once you get the sleeping bag saturated with the water and most of the air out as best
you can.
As you can see, I'm just gently squeezing the air out of the sleeping bag.
And trying to get it completely wet.
Once the sleeping bag is wet, add the soap to the tub.
I have a little warm water running just to help the soap mix and I used two capfuls but
follow the instructions on whatever downwash you're using.
The Granger's brand also makes a concentrated version of this cleaner.
So just check on the back of the bottle for the amount.
Mix the soap into the water and at this point, the sleeping bag is floating in the water
and it's a lot easier to work with.
So I'm just going to use my hands to gently agitate the sleeping bag, working the soapy
water into it.
As you agitate you can also continue to get any remaining air out.
Once you've agitated the sleeping bag and you feel pretty good about the soap getting
into the sleeping bag let it soak for about 10 minutes in the tub and let the down cleaner
do its job.
After it has soaked let the water drain out of the tub again.
This is a slow process.
You have to be so careful here.
I cannot stress that enough.
As you can see I'm using my whole arm to hold back the sleeping bag and let the water slowly
drain out.
I'm not pulling the sleeping bag to hold it back.
So I'm just really using my arm and being slow and gentle.
Once most of the water has drained, I'm going to slowly squeeze more of the water out with
my hands.
A down sleeping bag is so heavy when it's wet and the delicate threads holding the baffling
together can easily break so if you think you're being slow and gentle, be more slow
and gentle than that.
Do not rush.
Do not pull on your sleeping bag.
Okay?
You have been warned.
You can and will ruin your sleeping bag if you're not slow and gentle and thoughtful
with your movements.
Okay, so don't come at me.
I have warned you.
As you can see, I slowly roll my sleeping bag to get the water out.
Then I will unroll it and fill the tub back up with warm water.
There's really honestly no right way to do this necessarily.
You don't have to roll it, but I've just found that that's kind of the easiest way to kind
of get this water out.
Again, slowly work the water into the sleeping bag for the first rinse.
I zipped my sleeping bag up at this point to make it a little bit easier to roll when
we start to squeeze the water out again.
But once you feel good about getting the clean water into the sleeping bag, let the water
drain and then once again squeeze the water out as best you can.
I recommend that you put on a show or a podcast or an audio book just to have something to
listen to while you're doing this.
I think I had The Office on in the background and it definitely makes it a lot better if
you just have something to kind of put your mind on.
You will then rinse one or two more times until you're confident that all the cleaner
has been rinsed out.
So you just kind of want to slowly work that freshwater in and do this process another
couple times.
This clip here was sped up by 20000% So that should give you a little perspective on how
slow I was actually moving.
After you rinsed a few times with warm water and you squeezed out the water as best you
can lay two large bath towels down on the ground and carefully lift your sleeping bag
out of the tub.
As you can see I'm using my whole arm to get under it and lift it.
Place it on the towel and slowly unroll it.
Then, to get some of the additional water out, I roll it up in the towel again.
Be slow, be patient, there might be some air in there that you just want to slowly escape.
I'm going to repeat that process one more time with the other towel.
At this point the sleeping bag should start to feel a lot lighter.
Pick up the sleeping bag rolled in the towel and bring it over to the dryer.
You're going to want to use a big dryer for this part.
If you have a nice dryer that has great temperature control like the one I'm using here, then
you can set it on a low heat.
If you're at all unsure, or if you have a dryer that doesn't have good temperature control,
then use no heat.
When in doubt, use no heat.
I set my dryer to a timed dry on a low heat and just let it go.
Drying the sleeping bag is going to take a long, long time.
Especially if you're using no heat.
So just keep restarting it over and over and over.
As it gets drier you can take it out fluff it around, turn it inside out just to make
sure everything is getting dried evenly.
When it's dry, it should be nice and fluffy again and there should be no clumps of down
left.
I like to actually sit down and feel around and double check that there are no clumps
of down.
Even if it seems dry, you might still find a few clumps of down which means it needs
more time.
When in doubt, keep drying it.
You can use this same procedure if you want to clean a down jacket.
A down jacket is a lot easier to clean and a lot faster to clean than the sleeping bag
but this is the process for that as well.
We are finally done cleaning this down sleeping bag.
As you can see it's kind of a long process.
Again, this is not something that I do very often.
One of the ways that you can actually reduce the amount of times that you need to clean
your sleeping bags by simply just using a sleeping bag liner.
And then you can just take the liner out and clean the liner really frequently so that
will reduce the amount times you actually have to go through the process that I showed
you in this video but I don't know if you can tell it is so much more fluffy and lofty
than it was when I began.
So yeah, it's like a brand new sleeping bag.
I'm excited to take this out and just be nice and warm in the tent.
And so if you liked this video, make sure to give it a like let me know in the comments
what you thought and consider subscribing.
I have tons more outdoor content on this channel and I would love to see you in the next one.