My wife and I were backpacking this weekend up in the North Cascades of WA state.
We were using what we nearly always us for cooking, our Soto Windmaster stove. We noticed a few things that were out of the ordinary: yellowish flame, smell of gas..and..we used-up a medium size canister of fuel. Using-up so much fuel for just an overnight was way out of the ordinary. Temperatures were warm (50deg F), and we have used the stove in the dead of winter scores of times and only used about 1/2 a medium canister for a winter overnight where all our water was from melting of snow.
While we were in our cook shelter (MLD Cricket!) we spotted a small black rubber band in the snow and wondered where it came from? But we were tired and didn’t put a lot of thought into it. We were tired, and hungry.
I did not put two and two together until this afternoon, back home, where I was noticing that the way the stove was screwing onto a fresh canister did not “feel” right. I disconnected the stove from the canister and looked at the bottom of the stove where I spotted a black o-ring, and, suspiciously, another place inside the (outer) o-ring for a 2nd (inner) o-ring. But there was no o-ring in the inner space. Then I remembered the black o-ring we spotted in the snow! It was the inner o-ring, somehow it fell out.
So, it all makes sense now: The flame was yellowing because a little bit of fuel was escaping from the stove/canister connection and getting up into the flame. And the gas escaping is what my wife smelled, and that’s why the stove went through fuel so quickly: fuel was slowly (but significantly) leaking out of the canister/stove interface!
Too bad we didn’t save that mystery o-ring we saw in the snow! (I tore through our garbage from our trip and could not find it)
The kind folks at Soto USA are going to replace the entire stove. Wow! That is outstanding customer service! Thank you Tomo (the SOTO USA rep).
I have seen other posts about windmasters having a yellow flame and going through fuel quickly and I am curious…could it be due to the inner o-ring falling out? No criticism of the stove by the way, we love the stove and it has been completely reliable, lightweight and easy to use.
