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Really though, so many Americans would have their cooking lives enriched by an electric kettle.
My parents told me, "be careful the heating elements catch fire, there's little to no safety mechanism, you can't leave them alone!"
It's a kettle...
People either don't know they exist or have some weird thing with them. Gives me the same vibes as cultures that don't sleep with the fans on lol.
My weird thing with them is a lack of counter space
Not sleeping with the fan on is a way to save face, at least in Asian cultures. In which it's basically the families out to admit their loved one committed suicide.
They say if you have a fan on in the night and the door closes, it creates a vortex and somehow sucks out all the oxygen.
Well they aren't wrong. They just come from a time with a lot less consumer safety. And we're headed back with fake UL stuff being sold in stores. We kind of grew up in a golden age of consumer safety. We even made jokes about "don't use grandma's extension cord".
I think most electric kettles are a bit slower there due to normal outlets only being 110V, but not all kitchens have 20A outlets(probably most do nowadays?), so the kettles made for the USA market tend to be 1.6KW so they can run off a 15A outlet if needed, whereas ones made for 240V countries tend to be 2KW.
Should still be way faster to use a kettle than an air fryer though as I'd assume the air frier would likely be limited to 1.6KW too?
American kettles are a lot faster than anything else Americans have access to, except a microwave. That does a mug of water in one minute. As a trade off it seriously degrades the mug over time.
120V is the American outlet. Japan uses electric kettles just fine at 100V. I think the reason they arnt super prevalent is cultural. Not speed.
The air fryer either superheats or melts the mug, depending on its material. You either scald your hands picking it up like you would grab it from the microwave, or you burn your house down.
or you burn your house down.
Probably only if your mugs are made of wood 😂
Or plastic
That's not a mug, that's a cup 😂
If all you need is one single mug of hot water, a microwave is the way to go.
Not Usonian but I've never understood the electrical kettle, I just use the microwave for infusions and the like. And for everything else cooking related the stove.
Am I missing something?
Yes, kettles are more efficient at boiling water vs a microwave. On top of that, you don't need to guess the time it's going to take, it just goes until the internal temperature sensor reads 100degs and it shuts itself off with a little 'clunk'.
Thanks for the enlightening, now I understand.
Still microwave for me since while I do enjoy infusions I don't make them that much to justify the expense and the extra stuff laying around.
No worries, thanks for listening! As with all these things the efficiency bonus is slight, so unless you're a heavy user it likely won't represent a saving vs. the energy taken to make the kettle in the first place. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Out of my own curiosity... what's an infusion?
some cultures refer to aromatized or herbal tea as infusion
An infusion is, according to WordRefence, an herbal tea (tho technically speaking coffe is an infusion too). This might be just me being pedantic but in Spanish everyone says tea too and they could be preparing ginger or whatever other plant instead.
Sorry for the rambling. 😅
I just use boiling water for so much dehydrated shit in addition to making French press coffee or iced tea. Stuffing, instant noodles, oatmeal, whatever. Sometimes I also kickstart boiling water and then pour it into a pot. They're just so much faster than regular stoves because of the way the heating element is placed.
You can probably find a second hand kettle for 5$ bucks. But if you don't use it often, it might take too much space for its use.
But you already have the microwave, so unless your electricity is expensive, it doesn't really make a difference.
Interjecting with some slight pedantry, but only because I think it's interesting.
There may be some kettles that just switch off at 100C, but those would be pretty terrible kettles, as they could only boil water at sea level. Go up to 10,000 ft. of elevation, or put something in them that boils at a lower temp than water, and that kettle would just keep running until all the liquid is evaporated.
Most kettles (I think, this is totally based purely on anecdotal evidence, I haven't actually gone out and examined most kettles) detect the presence of boiling in general, rather than a particular temperature. This allows them to work on a variety of liquids at a variety of pressures (or elevations). They do this with some clever piping and a bi-metallic strip. Basically some of the vapor of whatever liquid you're boiling is directed through some piping down to the bottom of the kettle, where it passes over a bi-metallic strip and heats it up. Once the strip heats up enough (to a temp much less than the boiling point of water or most other household liquids you find yourself in need of boiling), it buckles, and does electrical circuitry things that end up turning off the heating element.
There's a Steve Mould video on the topic with a much better explanation that's super interesting, for those of you into nerdy sciency type stuff: https://youtu.be/VzqN4Cn8r3U
Oh neat, how do those kettles that have a temperature selection thingy for different kinds of tea work then?
I imagine it's a combination of a thermometer plus the bi-metallic switch mechanism to prevent the kettle from boiling dry, with the assumption that you'll generally just be boiling water near sea level in them. I wonder if the nicer ones have like a calibration mode or something where you can adjust the temperature setting for different altitudes though 🤔
I prefer kettle as a microwave is slower, and turns ceramic cups into lava.
Very true tho.
You can accidentally superheat your water in the microwave.
For me it's just quick and accurate. Every tool for a job. I can make a cup quickly, to the temp I need (green/black teas, coffees etc.)
No guessing of temps or times. No need to ramp up the stove and burn all that energy.