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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   4230 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 7, 2024

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Which electric kettle should I buy?

You've not detailed any criteria, so this suggestion assumes you are willing to spend for quality.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DTMZL56/

If you make coffee, get the gooseneck option.

It is insulated, has constant temperature control, C and F, well built, simple. Boils very fast. The best feature of this is kettle imo is that it doesn't make any sounds. No beeps or chirps of any other unnecessary racket when you're trying to boil water. It was remarkably hard to find a kettle that did this.

What difference does a gooseneck kettle have on my French press coffee? It seems like that's only relevant if you make pour over. Any kind of immersion brewing and the gooseneck doesn't seem to matter.

I have a normal thermostat kettle and I love it, so I will second the recommendation on principle, but I still don't understand the gooseneck thing except as a matter of style.

If you're unsure how much you will use it, I'd do the same approach as I take to tools. That is, buy the cheapest Harbor Freight equivalent, and then if you use it enough for its flaws to annoy you, get rid of it and buy a fancy for-life quality one.

Goal and price range? If you're a coffee guy, I would spring the extra money for the nice goosenecks with temperature settings and timers. Waking up and having hot water ready to go is really convenient. The Fellow Stagg kettle is my favorite that I've used.

I got the glass Amazon basics one, incredibly cheap. They only last a few years at my level of use anyway, so you're not stuck with it forever.

One with stainless steel sides, base and lid to minimise plastic leeching. Also one with a temperature display as some teas will be much better when steeped at 70 degree.

Get one with a temperature display. It's useful for tea varieties that need 70 or 80 or whatever degrees C. I can't recommend a specific one unfortunately because my own without display is still working fine, but I tried one with display while on vacation and I'm a convert. Haven't done the research yet to find the best model for my next purchase.

Just boil water in the microwave.

Doesn’t that risk superheating and explosion

It's possible, but you have to put a ton of effort into it, and most kitchenware today is microwave safed by including microscoring to avoid that sort of problem. And if you're not sure, throwing anything like a wooden kitchen utensil (or a toothpick) in will completely eliminate the risk.

That said, tea purists will absolutely dump boiling water on you for doing it, though.

I'm a tea purist with a $200 usd kettle, and I'm fine with using a microwave if that's all that I have around. I probably spent a decade making tea at work this way with zero issues. I even tried intentionally causing a "superheating" situation and couldn't make it happen. Do let the water cool down a bit before making (black) tea; 99c is the ideal temperature. Water that is actually as a rolling boil with ruin the flavor of the tea by boiling out some of the oil in the leaves. You can tell when you've done this by a lot of small bubbles forming on the surface. For green tea let it cool a bit more, 90-95c.

Heathen. Barbarian. Pagan.

At keast they're boiling it, I saw a comment a couple of days ago from someone saying they use the hot tap.

I hope they have an instant hot water dispenser.

I believe that's a cry for help.

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