How to Use a Snuffer Bottle

At the end of cleanup, your gold is sitting in the bottom of the pan, and now you have to get it into a vial. Tweezers work for bigger pieces, but small flakes slip away. A snuffer bottle makes the job easier. This guide covers what a snuffer bottle is, how it works, how to use one and what else you can use instead. Randy has used snuffer bottles himself.

What is a snuffer bottle?

A snuffer bottle is a small, soft plastic squeeze bottle with a narrow tube or tip, used to pick gold out of a pan. You squeeze it, put the tip next to the gold and let go, and the gold is sucked up along with a little water. It is also called a gold snuffer.

Official guides mention it only in passing. New Mexico's state geological survey, in its guide to gold panning, suggests an eyedropper or gold snuffer for picking out larger flakes, alongside tweezers and the tip of a knife.

Why does a snuffer bottle work?

Because gold is heavy. Gold is more than 19 times as heavy as water, so once a flake is drawn into the bottle it sinks to the bottom and stays there. You can let a little water back out of the tip without losing the gold, and keep picking up flake after flake.

How do you use a snuffer bottle?

It works best at the very end of cleanup, when there is little left in the pan but gold and a few heavy grains.

1. Work over a tub or second pan. The Forest Service and BLM recommend doing your final panning over another container so no gold is lost. It is a good habit for this step too.
2. Clear the black sand first. Pass a magnet over the wet concentrate to lift out the magnetite. In a normal pan, our magnet pulls up all the black sand we see, so the flakes are no longer buried. A magnet does not pull gold, but a tiny flake can ride along stuck to a grain of magnetite, so drop what it lifts into a pan of water and check it. Keep the magnet away from phones, cards and steel tools, and read our magnet safety warnings.
3. Give it a quick final pan. Swirl the last of the concentrate gently so the gold gathers in a line or crescent in the bottom of the pan.
4. Keep a little water in the pan. The gold should sit under a thin layer of water, so the bottle has water to draw in with each flake.
5. Squeeze, then aim. Squeeze the bottle gently first, then hold the tip just next to a flake under the water.
6. Ease off. Slowly relax your grip. The water rushes into the tip and carries the flake with it.
7. Keep going. The gold sinks to the bottom of the bottle, so you can move on to the next flake.

Our guide to separating gold from black sand covers the magnet step in more detail, and a black sand magnet is the tool for it.

How do you get the gold out of a snuffer bottle?

Turn the bottle over a water-filled vial, let the gold settle down into the tip, and give a gentle squeeze so the water carries the gold into the vial. Do it over your pan, so anything that misses the vial lands somewhere you can find it.

Can a snuffer bottle pick up flour gold?

It can draw up small specks along with the water, but it works best on flakes you can see. The very finest gold, called flour gold, is easiest to keep by careful panning. Our guide to flour gold explains how.

What else can you use to pick up gold?

The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, in their guide to recreational gold panning, suggest tweezers, the tip of a knife blade or a dry fingertip. A dry fingertip works well on small flakes. Touch the flake, and it sticks to your finger long enough to rinse it off into your vial.

Oregon's state geologists describe the same finish: lift out most of the black sand with a magnet, then pick out the gold with tweezers.

What should you keep your gold in?

A small, clear vial filled with water. The Forest Service and BLM gear list includes small glass vials for holding gold, and New Mexico's state survey mentions small sample containers such as pill bottles. Water helps in two ways: the gold sinks to the bottom where you can see it, and it is much harder to spill a flake out of a wet vial than a dry one.

Which snuffer bottle is best?

We do not recommend brands, and we do not sell snuffer bottles. Look for one that is soft enough to squeeze easily and has a tip narrow enough to aim at a single flake.

Can you make money panning for gold?

For most people, no, and it is best to go in knowing that. California's state geologists, in their hints for gold prospectors, estimate that only about 1 in 1,000 people who prospected in the western United States ever made a real strike. The Forest Service puts it kindly: you probably will not get rich, but you may well find some color.

For the rest of the cleanup process, from black sand to the vial, see our gold cleanup page.