Aims To demonstrate and characterize a portable lysis apparatus for rapid single‐step bacterial DNA extraction. Methods and Results Our portable lysis apparatus employed a novel design consisting of an annular piezo‐element with perforated diaphragm. Using Bacillus subtilis as target bacteria, our portable lysis apparatus was able to achieve a normalized percent lysis as high as 66% within 30 s. This is comparable to that by microprobe ultrasonication and almost 7 times higher than that by conventional bead beating. The effect from adding glass beads was predictable. However, the results from the addition of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) were counter‐intuitive because a further increase from 0·5 to 1% concentration reduced the lysis performance. The portable lysis apparatus is also at least 1·5–5 times more power efficient than microprobe ultrasonication. Conclusions Our portable lysis apparatus is capable of rapidly extracting bacterial DNA and is more power efficient than microprobe ultrasonication. The addition of glass beads or SDS concentration (up to 0·5%) improves its performance. Significance and Impact of the Study The portable lysis apparatus provides a standalone, rapid, low cost and power efficient way of obtaining genomic constituents prior to a variety of bioassays used in the field of environmental, biomedical and other applied microbiology.