Soto Windmaster Review

Established in 2010, Soto is a fairly new Japanese outdoor company (Soto means “outdoors” in Japanese), but its parent company has produced torches and commercial stoves for decades. While you may be new to the brand, it has gained an impressive reputation for making lightweight, reliable, and fuel-efficient backpacking stoves. In that vein, the WindMaster stove distinguishes itself as a very high-performing small canister stove that's particularly dependable in the wind. After tallying up the scores, the testing team concluded, “While the WindMaster is a fairly light option, we particularly loved its versatility: it's excellent for anything from simmering to boiling water.”

Fuel Efficiency

We gave the crucial fuel efficiency metric 25% of the total score of the WindMaster. We tested this metric by weighing a fuel canister before and after the stove had boiled a pot of water to determine its fuel-per-boil score. Then, we repeated the process to create an average. Lastly, we took detailed notes during our field testing regarding fuel efficiency, particularly when going on similar lengths of trip with similar meals but utilizing different stoves. This stove came in towards the top of the lineup.

The WindMaster offers a score of .25 ounces of iso-propane per boil, which puts it above average in the lineup. When making more involved meals in a pan, we found that this option continued to offer fuel-efficient cooking, making it ideal for a wide variety of meals, whether sauteeing veggies or just boiling water for a dehydrated dinner. The most noteworthy aspect of the WindMaster in this metric was its relatively good efficiency in windy environments, which can otherwise cause a stove's fuel efficiency to plummet.

Weight

We gave weight 25% of the total score of the WindMaster since it's likely one will be carrying their backpacking stove in their bags. We scored this metric by weighing each model on a scale as well as sizing up dimensions and packability. We primarily focused on the “essential weight” of each stove, which includes the stove, stove bag, pot, and lid. For models that didn't include a pot or lid, like the WindMaster, we used a standardized pot/lid combo from Snowpeak that weighed 6.6 ounces. This model came in towards the front of the pack.

The WindMaster comes in at 10.1 oz for its essential weight, landing it above average in the lineup. Uniquely, it's compatible with two different pot supports: the 4Flex (which is what we tested) and the triflex, which only has three support arms but it weighs a bit less. Considering the wind resistance and simmering capabilities of this stove, its weight is excellent, though there are lighter models available if only needing to boil water.

The WindMaster also offers decent packability, easily fitting inside a backpack or pot without trying too hard.

Simmering Ability

If all you ever eat in the backcountry is instant food, skip this section. If, on the other hand, you've been thinking about making noodles or investing in a frying pan to make an egg scramble, or even frying up some fish you caught with that ultralight fly rod, then this metric is for you. We tested this metric by deliberately making involved backcountry meals throughout our testing process, from quesadillas to spaghetti. We also cooked a standardized box of mac and cheese with each stove, examining how well each model could keep the pot from boiling over. This is one of the strongest metrics of the WindMaster, coming in at the front of the pack.

The WindMaster offers an excellent simmer relative to its size, allowing our backcountry chefs to cook a variety of meals despite the wilderness setting. While the valve is a bit sensitive, we were able to get the stove just barely on without it blowing out – an essential attribute for sauteing or cooking noodles. Another quality that contributes to good simmering is the size of the burner head. The WindMaster sports a burner head that's about 1-¾ inches across. This is one of the larger burners for a small canister stove, which helps distribute heat across cookware and leads to fewer scorched spots in the middle of the pan.

Ease Of Use

The WindMaster saw a lot of field time with our testing team and is one of the easier to use stoves in our review. We don't want to spend valuable backcountry time messing around with our stove. We, like you, want something straightforward and reliable.

Our testers don't like keeping track of dinky parts and prefer stoves that require as little assembly as possible. Our review team shared their biggest grievance: “The pot supports are not permanently attached to the stove and can be finicky to put back on if they fall off.” Nevertheless, the pot stabilizers are big, sturdy, and easily support cookware larger than 1 liter. The control valve wire is about 1.5 inches long and is typically easy to locate. However, it can get tricky to find the wire when you pair the stove with larger cookware.

The piezoelectric igniter on the WindMaster worked almost every time. We took many trips with this as our only stove and rarely needed to use the lighter in our backpack, but we always recommend bringing a lighter, no matter how reliable these on-board igniters have gotten over the years.

Boil Time

We gave this metric 15% of the total score of the WindMaster and encourage shoppers to put less emphasis on this than the marketing materials of a stove manufacturer. We predominantly tested this metric while testing fuel efficiency, with repeated rounds of boiling water in a controlled environment indoors. This is simply meant to offer a baseline understanding of each stove's capabilities. Then, we got the stoves out in the mountains for some real-world testing, taking extensive notes along the way relative to boil capabilities as the environment got windy or stormy. The WindMaster is among the fastest options in the review for boiling water.

The WindMaster offered an average .5 liter boil time of 1 minute, 55 seconds, which is among the fastest times we've yet seen. In light winds, we found that it boiled one liter of water in around 5 minutes and 46 seconds. Throughout the rest of our field testing while on climbing and backpacking trips, the WindMaster performed very well, though we still recommend blocking the wind when possible to keep the fuel efficiency as high as possible.

Should You Buy the Soto WindMaster?

Though it is one of the more expensive small canister stoves in our test, the combination of low weight and generous pot supports give the WindMaster added versatility, which boosts its value. We think the high performance, clever features, and reliability of this stove make it worth the money and worthy of your consideration, particularly if needing a model that can cook more involved meals.

What Other Backpacking Stoves Should You Consider?