Electric kettle advice

There are literally dozens of models available. Amazon has quite a few and many have owner ratings. Epinions has a long list:

I just completed a fairly detailed search. I ended up ordering the Digital Kettle Pro from Tea Treasures. It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I'll post my impressions after I have a chance to use it some.

On 8/20, Natarajan posted a nice review, after having just received one. It was one of the reasons I bought one myself.

In my opinion, your $50 limit makes no sense. The difference between $50 and $100 is only $10/year if you keep if for just 5 years. If the $100 model has features that make your life easier, isn't that worth $10/year to you? No-brainer to me.

My finalists were:

1. Digital Kettle Pro, , Tea Treasures.

Pros:

• Digital temp control: 104°F - boiling, +/- 3 degrees.
• Temperature hold: holds water at the temperature setting.
• Cordless
• Stainless steel
• 1.5 liter (50 oz, 6 cup) capacity
• Auto shutoff if it runs dry
• Alarm when water reaches temperature

Cons:

• 1,000 W (less than most)
• Expensive
• External water guage. The website says it has an external water guage, but Nataranjan says it does not.

For me, this was the only real contender. The digital temp setting and the temp hold are not available in any other product as fas as I know. The ability to fill it up, set the temperature, and not have to be right there the instant it's ready was easily worth the extra $30-40.

1. utiliTea, , Adagio

It's available from Adagio for $49:

Pros:

• Variable temp control (~145°F to 212°F)
• Stainless steel
• Price

Cons:

• Temp control is analog, marking approximate
• No temp hold. Shuts off after reaching temp
• Details on Adagio are sketchy (like everything on Adagio)
• Only 30 oz (1 liter, 4 cups)

This was a distant second and the only other real contender for me.

1. AK16, , Upton Tea

Pros:

• Variable temp
• 1400 watts
• Stainless steel
• Price

Cons:

• Analog temp control
• No temp hold

1. Zojirushi, 5-0

Pros:

• Variable temp control
• Large capacity (some up to 4 liters)
• Keep warm (like a thermos, not temp hold)

Cons:

• Temp control not continuous (3-4 settings)
• Price
• Typical Zogirushi overkill
• Ugly

1. T-Fal BF6520004 Vitesse

Pros:

• Capacity: 7 cups)
• Variable temp control

Cons:

• No markings on temp control
• One reviewer said there are really only 2 settings
• No temp hold

1. Bravetti Digital Kettle,

Pros:

• Digital temp control
• 2 liter capacity
• 1500 watts
• Temp hold

Cons:

• Poor reviews: breaks easily, no run dry protection
• Price

1. Russell Hobbs Millenium

The review sounded a lot like the Digital Kettle Pro, but I couldn't find it anywhere for sale.

There are many others with excellent reviews that do not have my required features.

"Controller falls back to warm setting automatically, to keep water warm after boiling."

the description states it 'keeps water warm after boiling'.

It does not state it will keep the water at exactly the set temperature.

am i missing something in the description ?

Yes but if you follow the same logic you can say that a $1000 kettle used over 20 years is just $4/month. That's the kind of silly thinking that left me pennyless and having to settle for a $50 kettle. So you see that the answer is already part of your question?

I already have a Zojirushi and I suspect that hold temp feature results in less-tasty tea. Digital temp control is no better than analog, the real issue is how accurate the thermostat is, the Zoji I have cost $120 and is often listed at around $140-150, so I think it would have thermostat as good as kettles in sub-100 range, and it's not terribly accurate, it can read 85 and then if you unplug and plug it in again it will read 90, very often. So, analog would be just fine for me as long as it's accurate and consistent, but some people in adagio UtiliTea reviews say that it's not consistent, i.e. same setting will sometimes produce different temp.

I don't want to pay more than $50 because I'm not sure I will use it at all. I think tea from electrically heated water won't taste the same/as good. Also the reviews say that if you use less water, same setting will produce higher temp.

My main concern is inconsistent heating at same setting, because then I'd rather buy a $40-50 kettle without variable temp locally and use a timer with it.

BTW Zojirushis look very nice, and they do temp hold by heating. They only have one model that _in addition_ works like a thermos, so that it spends less energy to keep water at high temp.

The real problem with Zojis is that white and green teas don't taste very good. I think because of electric heating and slow heating.. Actually blacks don't taste quite the same either.

Questionable logic. Anything can be taken to a silly extreme. If your self-control is so impaired that you bankrupted yourself buying the top-of-the-line everything, then you probably can't even afford the $50 unit. Or, if your time and convenience isn't worth the extra $50, don't buy it. You know what your time is worth.

More questionable logic. But, then, I think we'd had this debate before. However, I'd give you the extra $50 if you could tell the difference between tea brewed from water heated in a glass kettle and used the instant it was warm and tea brewed from water heated in a stainless kettle and left on warm for 10-15 minutes in a double-blind test. I guess if you let it boil for 10-15 minutes, assuming you had any water left, that would probablyt be detectable due to lack of oxygen, but not just keeping it warm well below boiling.

That's not true. With the digital, you get an exact setting. With the analog, you cannot be sure you set it to exactly the same place unless it has places where it clicks into place.

So you're willing to "risk" $50, but not $51?

Again, I'd wager you can't tell the difference in a double-blind test.

Yeah, I know you believe that the molecules somehow know where the heat came from. They don't. Maybe if you heated the water under one of those pyramid thingies from the 60s (or was it the 70s?) or hung some crystals around or played some new age music.

Have you tried homeopathy techniques on tea? Maybe you could brew one perfect cup using perfect spring water heated in a glass pot, etc., etc., ... Then, through a process of diluting and succussing, you can have an endless source of perfect tea forever.

Just kidding. I tried to give you some information on tea kettles. If it wasn't useful, I'm sorry. Good luck with your $50 kettle. I'll report back on my $90 digital after tomorrow.

Well, it's always a sliding scale. 9 times out of 10, paying more will yield some advantage in ruggedness, looks, features, etc. You have to draw the line in the sand somewhere.

Where are you? I don't want to spend $500 on travel to win $50 in a blind test!

It's not exact with digital because it depends on thermostat which likely isn't exact. Weakest link in the chain and all that. I'd think that far more inexactness is introduced by thermostat than being 2mm off on the analog dial, but that's just my opinion.

Will the next question be something like "you're willing to risk $51 but not $52??". I'm hoping actually that the $40 one will do. It sound like AK16 is the very similar to the adagio kettle. In fact it's $50 and then discounted to $38.

I could tell a huge difference with electric range and Zoji pot. I would have preferred not being able to, because it's far more convenient to use Zoji pot and I paid $120 for it.

So, how do you explain HUGE difference with *both* Zoji pot and electric range when molecules are the same?

Yet in food preparation it's a well known fact that type of stove and material of the pan will affect the taste. There's brick ovens, pizza stones, copper pans, even though "heat is the same".

Here's a quote from 'water encyclopedia' site: Although water has the simple formula H2O, it is a complex chemical solution. "Pure" water essentially is nonexistent in the natural environment. Natural water, whether in the atmosphere, on the ground surface, or under the ground, always contains dissolved minerals and gases as a result of its interaction with the atmosphere, minerals in rocks, organic matter, and living organisms.

Why don't you try a green or white tea first with electric range and then with gas range and report on difference? I already tried it so I'm arguing from experience and you are arguing from theory.

No, I appreciate your help but I asked for some specific criteria. That's like someone asking how to get from NY to Niagara falls by bus and someone else replying that you shouldn't do that but instead fly to Bangkok and have striped mussels in "Golden Lotus" restaurant because they're un-be-li-eve-able. :-).

You are muddying the waters again. There are 2 factors: (1) the thermostat and (2) the dial. Assuming that the thermostat is the same, a digital "dial" will be more accurate and more repeatable than an analog dial. Of course, if the analog unit has a better thermostat, then we are not comparing apples to apples. I would suspìt that the digital units have a better thermostat because the digital dial can make use of a better thermostat, whereas it would be wasted with an analog dial.

I've got to finmd a way to keep you from changing the parameters of the debate. ;-)

Only you can judge the cost/value tradeoffs. For me, $50 is nothing if it makes my life easier on anything like a daily basis, which I believe this new kettle will.

I'd have to see the Zoji. If the lining was leaching chemicals into the water, then it's clearly different.

What I am saying is that pure water molecules (H2O) that are heated over gas, electric, microwave, or campfire are indistinguishable from each other. If the heating method puts something into the water, then that's a different matter.

There you go again. That is a completely different animal. Baking a cake or a pizza at 300 vs 450 will yield a very different result, but there are chemical and other processes that change. I'm talking about water (H2O).

True, but we'd be using water from the same source. Let's take three pyrex pots. Fill each with 1 liter of spring water. Put one on a gfas range, one on an electric, and one in a microwave. Turn on the juice and bring them all to a boil. Time how long it takes. As soon as we have a rolling boil, make a pot of a good tea with each one. No one will reliably be able to tell which is which.

We can repeat the experiment with water at 180 and a green or white tea. I contend that this will be even harder to distinguish, because it might be possible that one method or the other caused the water to lose a little more or less oxygen when brought all the way to a boil.

You may have more experience, but I do have some. I will absolutely try the green and white teas.

No, Rainy, that is not even remotely analogous. A better analogy would be if you asked how you could get from NY to Niagara Falls for less than $50 and I suggested that for $100, you could go by method A, which would save you 4 hours of travel time, and then asked you if your time is worth more than $12.50/hour.

Now no more changing the parameters...

No, I agree that thermostats being perfectly accurate, digital setting may be a little better. The real issue is that no matter how accurate digital setting is, it's already limited by accuracy of thermostat. If a thermostat is very accurate, an analog dial will be perfectly good to hit the needed range for a particular tea, IMHO. If it's not very accurate then it's like one of the guides to Egyptian pyramids who put up a board that said 'this pyramid is 3002 years old' and someone wondered how he can be so precise about the date, and he answered that he first became a guide

Absolutely not true, I used a glass kettle on an electric range and the difference was night and day. I used the same glass kettle on a gas range.

In an electric kettle, what is the material of heating element? What difference can it make for levels of ions in water, for levels of dissolved oxygen, for reactions of the minerals and other inorganics?

(

For pH levels? For possible criteria that is unknown to either of us?

Good kettles for gas ranges use enamel on the inside, to avoid metallic taste in water. Do electric kettles have enamel coating on the inside?

If you are a physicist who worked on this question for a few decades, I think you would appreciate that this is a complex matter. Since neither you or me studied this in detail, I have only my taste to go by.

I give up. Funny story, though.

I'd have to see what you did. Based on your ability (or willingness) to stick to a linear debate, I would guess that there were a number of variables, other than heat source, that were not constant.

To run the experiment properly, we'd need a gas burner and an electric burner, two identical glass kettles, two identical teapots, a bunch (10-15) of identical tea cups, etc. The two burners may need to be separated by some sort of "shield" made of lead or kryptonite or something to keep these magical electric particles from the evil electric burner from contaminating the water on the gas burner. I'd suggest covering the gas burner and kettle with one of those tinfoil hats, but we'd have to cover both kettles to keep from introducing another variable. ;-)

You would be in another (soundproof) room with an experimenter separated from the kitchen by a "window" through which tea samples can be passed with a door on both sides.

1. Time both burners to determine about how long it takes each of them to get the water to the right temperature.
2. Start the experiment with the slower one (the electric?) first so that they arrive at temperature about the same time. Assign "heads" to one of the burners and one of the teapots and "tails" to the other.
3. Brew two pots of tea.

1. Prepare 5 teacups with numbers 1-5.

2. Take cup #1. Flip a coin. Fill the cup with tea made from water from the corresponding burner. Record the assignment on a tally sheet. Repeat for cups 2-5. Note, that it's possible that all 5 cups could be from the same pot.

1. Put the tea cups on a tray. Open this side of the window, ensuring that the other side is closed. Put the tray inside the window, close this side, and let the other experimenter know that the samples are ready.

2. The other experimenter opens their side of the window and removes the tray with the 5 cups. You are now given as much time as you want to taste the tea in the 5 cups. You are given a sheet numbered 1-5. You are to write "gas" or "electric" next to each number.

I'd repeat this at least 2-3 times.

Then, if there is truly a difference, I would want to analyze the water after heating to see what's different.

Now you are changing the rules again. ou said you could tell the difference between a glass kettle on a gas range vs an electric range. Using an electric kettle where the heating element is in direct contact with the water introduces at least one more variable. Personally, I still doubt you could tell the difference, but that's a harder expermient.

Sure, but these are the same for both ranges in our experiment above.

Sure, but these are the same for both ranges in our experiment above.

You are changing the rules again. If you prefer to use enamel-coated kettles, then we'll use two identical enamel-coated kettles and rerun the experiment.

I think I have a better appreciation for the complexity than you do. That's why I am trying so hard to get you to stand still and quit changing the rules.

And I am willing to leave 100% of the results up to you and your vaunted taste. I'm just going to eliminate as many other factors as I can.

When I was in graduate school, I took a class on research methods. One day, we ran an experiment somewhat similar to this, but with Coke and Pepsi. The professor first passed out a questionnaire asking each student to answer questions about how many cola drinks they drink, whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi.

A couple of students were selected to go in the other room on the other side of the two-sided window and prepare paper cups of Coke or Pepsi as in the procedure above. Since we had about 20-25 students, they actuially passed 5 trays through. One with cups labelled "1", one with cups labelled "2", and so forth. Each student was given one cup from each tray.

This expermient is different from the tea expermient because there really is a difference between Coke and Pepsi.

Guess what the results were? No one could reliably tell the difference. It's been a long time, but I think the most accurate "guesser" was only about 60% right. If I recall correctly, no one was even very good at correctly identifying which cups were from the same bottle, even if they couldn't tell which brand.

What I do remember was that the avid Coke or Pepsi drinkers were actually a little worse than those who professed no preference. Ego? Probably. And those who said they never drink colas were about as accurate as any other group.

I had a very good time that day.

OK, I'm done now. We're never going to run this experiment, of course, and you and I will probably continue to believe what we believe.

Peace.

PS: I do hope you find a few extra bucks so you can get an electric kettle that makes your life easier. And I hope that, if you do, that splurging like that does not plunge you back into a self-defeating spiral of over-spending and backruptcy. ;-)

I think the digital pro kettle's temperature control is relatively sophisticated. Since heating slows down as it nears the setpoint (when not in boil-first mode), this suggests the control algorithm tries to avoid overshoot.

I've used it for gong-fu a couple of times, and the water temperature has been quite stable. I haven't noticed the instability (overshoot, I bet) at lower water volumes, since I add a liter of water after pouring the current infusion's when the kettle starts to get low. It's within a degree or so of the setpoint by the time I'm ready for the next infusion. Initially, I measured with my regular thermometer, too. They only differed when the element has been engaged recently -- the difference is probably just due to transient temperature gradients and the different sensor positions. (The tea was really good, too -- Harney & Sons' da hong pao.)

Another approach that might be feasible for you is to get a decent (i.e., not the T-fal Vitesse) non-smart adjustable electric kettle to see if you like them at all, and if you find you need it, adding smarts later on as budgeting permits. E.g., I would love to have an Auber Instruments' plug-and-play temperature controller (or two; or ten) someday:

HTH, and best luck finding a kettle that meets your needs, N.