Hey folks i was looking into buying one of these for a while but could not find any decent reviews.
So i decided to buy one for myself and then do my first real review.
I have up until now been using a Swedish Army Trangia for brews in the woods but wanted something lighter and faster boiling.
I will be using mine for comparison.
SO here goes and please bear with me.
Firstly let me start with the title, yes they are exactly the same item. Made in China by a company called Kingpool. Yellowstone seem to have bought a bulk load and are marketing them as there own the same as Alocs did in China.
There are no brand stamps of any kind on the stove or parts.
It came in a nice box written in English with instructions weight etc.
On opening the box box the stove and accessories are all neatly packed away in the net storage bag.
Inside you get
A spirit burner
A simmer ring
Top windshield
Bottom windshield
pot rest (silver circle)
900ml pot
340ml pot
A small microfiber cleaning cloth and the net storage bag.
At only 565g its a lot lighter over all than the SAT at over 1kg
All put together
And here is my old faithful SAT.
So i firstly started off testing the difference with the Spirit burners.
The size is obvious, the SAT is a big brass unit and the Yellowstone is smaller and a lot lighter.
The burn and bloom was also a lot different, the SAT took 6m 8sec to bloom from cold, the YS took only 2m 2sec and was a lot bigger and more powerful than the SAT
Next i did a boil test, both pots i filled with 500ml of cold water and put on the flames once it had bloomed.
The SAT took 13m 44sec to come to a rolling boil
The YS took only 8m 23sec to rolling boil.
Factor in the time it takes to bloom and the YS is a much faster boil than the old SAT.
I did see one big difference in that the SAT burner sits on the floor allowing cold when in snow/wet to affect its performance where as the YS has a lower windshield that the Burner sits on and raises it from the floor. This also creates a bigger gap between the burner top and pot bottom on the YS that allows the flame to raise itself bigger.
So i took the bottom windshield off the YS resting the burner on the floor, reducing the gap and did another boil test.
This time it took over a minute less to rolling boil. so reducing the gap seems to help the flame do its stuff. (maybe a little bit of modding needed here)
Very nice looking, packs away very tightly and neatly, uses less pack space and weight.
Overall the YS is a very nice little cookset that come in lighter and with a faster boil time than my SAT.
It costs a little more at £30 delivered but i think it is well worth the extra money.