It’s quicker
It’s quicker
158 comments
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For a single mug microwaves are quicker in America. Potentially even for 2 mugs.
BUT in America kitchen appliances have a power limit (usually) of 1,500W. This is usually higher than a standard microwave (1,000W). And since an electric kettle in America is just a heat source in water, it's very efficient. So if you're regularly heating multiple mugs worth of water, or just boiling water for cooking often, an electric kettle is definitely better. They are also pretty cheap.
Now in Europe and the UK, electric kettles are faster since they can often be around 3,000W or higher. But that doesn't mean American kettles are useless. American kettles a way faster than heating water on the stove. And WAAAY faster than heating water on a gas stove.
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I love my electric kettle. I can get 5 cups of boiling water in about five minutes (less for less water).
And while a microwave is likely faster, it also heats the container. For a quick, single mug, it's not an issue. Run that thing for five to heat a lot of water, and the container itself could be scorching hot.
I prefer the kettle every time.
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Why wouldn’t a microwave in the UK also be 3000W? Maybe it would instantly vaporize water and kill you when you open it?
It sounds like the issue is that UK may have weak microwaves compared to their kettles.
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It would burn your food. Microwaves heat the outermost layer that contains water. That heat conducts inwards. It's the same reason you don't bake everything at 500F.
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They absolutely do. Many microwaves in the UK are about half the power of built in American microwaves. (Portable/countertop microwaves are extremely common, being around 700-800W usually)
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I genuinely can't tell if this is a joke or not , but I really hope it is because its so perfect
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Kettle is much more convenient. Microwave is overkill, while a kettle is both a simpler machine and turns itself off when the water boils with no guesswork. It's ergonomically designed for pouring into a cup.
The speed argument is irrelevant, they're both quick enough.
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A microwave cannot be more efficient than an electric kettle with an immersion heating element (rare these days) anyways .
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Wait until you see my heat pump microwave checkmate libtards
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Most Americans own a microwave, but don’t own a kettle. So going to the store and buying a kettle is a little less convenient.
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You can of course, keep the kettle.
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American kettles are significantly worse than British kettles. They run at lower voltage and lower amperage, so they take much longer to boil water.
Given the choice between using a multipurpose microwave to do one more thing, and buying a separate appliance that is no faster, choosing to use the device you already own is entirely appropriate.
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There’s also the whole “kettles in America take longer to heat up, because America only has 120v electrical outlets while the UK has 240v, and therefore gets twice as much power for the same amperage” thing. That being said, I’m in America and I love my kettle. You just expect it to take 5-7 minutes to heat up, instead of 2-3. If I only want a single cup of something, then yeah I’ll use the microwave. But if I’m going to be making more than one cup, the kettle is my go-to.
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No judgement from me towards anyone who uses a microwave like this. But that's not a good argument. If you want to get pedantic, the one-time inconvenience of going to the store will be made up for by the hundreds of small conveniences of using it later.
In general I don't think it's fair to think about the inconvenience of buying a thing. Even online reviews, which often complain about shipping times which has nothing to do with the product, don't really complain about the inconvenience of having to buy or order something. It's not relevant.
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I inherited a kettle. Quick, what is my nationality?
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The microwave is more efficient because you can do all the steps at once. Put teabag in mug, cover with water, microwave, leave and let steep. And if you forget about your tea it's already in the microwave -- just push the "add 30 seconds" button.
I keep my Splenda and non-dairy creamer next to the microwave for added convenience.
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I don't know what you've made there, but it isn't tea.
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You can't put cold water and a teabag together in a microwave you psycho.
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Jess christ.. this makes me want to poke out my eyes!
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Meh my British kettle heats a cup of water to boiling in 30 seconds.
Faster than a microwave
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Is your microwave powered by a hamster? /s
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No, but there are no 3kW domestic microwaves on the market. Yet every kettle is 3kW.
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No my point is, as a British person that uses the kettle A LOT we went out and bought one that heats up a single cup at a time, which is quicker than boiling a whole kettle.
I fill it up like a kettle and it has a little chamber underneath that it fills and heats, then the boiling water comes out of a spout into the cup.
After owning this type of kettle for over a decade I don't think I can go back to a conventional kettle.
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It’s quicker if your electricity is a feeble 110v and not a mighty 240v.
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It's only faster because your half ass electrical system is only 120V Also the microwave makes the mug to hot to touch
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The electric kettle is still faster on 120v
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So does an oxy acetylene tourch, what's your point. Leave me with my glowing red hot coffee mug.
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Wait how does the microwave go faster when it's also on half the supply voltage?
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They use different methods of putting heat into water.
A microwave turns the electricity into RF radiation that is absorbed by the water. To produce that radiation, the input electricity is converted to thousands of volts by a DC power supply. So regardless of whether it's 120 or 230 input voltage, it all gets converted to the same high voltage DC to run the magnetron.
A classic electric kettle works by running the current from the outlet through a resistive heating element. Double voltage means double heat.
Induction heaters use a power supply to reduce the input voltage while increasing amps and frequency to heat metal through inductance. So, similar to a microwave, the voltage of the outlet is largely irrelevant.
Tl;Dr: microwaves and induction heaters change the supplied voltage to function, so they work the same in UK and US; resistive heaters work faster on 230v like the UK uses.
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Because resistive heating is inefficient. You need to pump a lot of power through to get a lot of heat. A microwave does not use resistive heating and works on a completely different principle and therefore the amount of power available is much less importance.
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I had a fucking chemistry teacher who told the class that microwaved water was different (and linked to cancer)
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I had a coworker who watched some idiotic video where someone showed "proof" that microwaved water kills plants. I never saw that video so I imagined they poured the boiling water onto the plants. He was adamant that it was true. "I know what I saw", blabla.
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Well, microwaves can affect your food. Though only a handful (of hundreds) of antioxidans in berries, same as if you leave them a few days in the fridge. But no issues with water.
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Though it also has the potential to flash boil. https://youtu.be/0JOxuS0SBHc?si=BnKVZWw5xcjalQy_
So be careful out there.
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Being careful in this case meaning don't boil distilled water in the microwave.
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There are very good reasons not to microwave tea, first of all:
- I usually find microwaving anything in a mug adds some unpleasant flavour from the mug. Using glass eliminates this, but worth noting.
- Microwaving the tea itself will break down some compounds and release more tannins, your tea will be worse.
But even if you're just microwaving the water, the kettle wins (depending on what tea you are brewing). Black tea should be brewed as close as possible to 100°C - when you have a kettle you should pour it just as it comes off the boil, around 90-95°C. By that point the water has actually been boiling for quite a while (at least the water around the element), allowing the rest of it to heat up. It's very difficult to achieve this in a microwave, and dangerous too since you can just end up spraying boiling water around your microwave.
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I wonder about the efficiency too. Wouldn't the microwave lose more "waves" that don't hit the mug?
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The sun is free! 😎
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Does this actually work? Looks amazing. Hope you don't accidentally put your hand in the focal point.
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There are much cheaper ones, but this one has always made me chuckle. Yes they work
That one is just the oven part of the kitchen
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They cost like £10
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I have an electric water heater. 5 liters of just below boiling (~90c)water available at the touch of two buttons(damn safety unlock has to be pressed before dispense).
If you want it actually boiling it is up to a rolling boil in less time than anything else heating room temp water as it only has to go up 10 more degrees.
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Good luck getting your water to the right temp in a microwave without toeing the flashboil line, though.
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Lol, only clean water flash boils. Our dirty pipes aren't a bug, they're a feature.
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Gotta admire this level of foresight, for sure. :)
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I tested my microwave with various volumes of water, took temperature readings, and developed a mental model. 450ml of water takes 5:45s to get to 193±1°F.
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Yeah. Coffe mug once handwarm, the next time boiling, isn't nice.
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I have an induction stove. The microwave isn't quicker.
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Induction cooktop master race. Both 'merica and 240V, boils water fast as fuck.
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I just got an induction and everything is so fast BUT for boiling water. It's weird, it's seems to take way too long. I'm not in America though, if it's a question of power not speaking American....
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Use a different pot. I have a small 2.5L "induction ready" pot that takes significantly longer than my stainless steel 11L to boil, because the former has a steel plate between layers of aluminium, and the latter is fully steel.
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Lid the pot. Evaporative cooling is a bitch.
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Hardware issue
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But the molecules are wiggling in the wrong way!
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The molecules are jiggling in imperial, not metric.
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They will jiggle how I tell them to jiggle.
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I do not say it is chemically different. I'm saying the tee does not taste the same! You cannot reduce the whole gustative experience to simply chemically composition but there IS something different.
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Joke's on you guys, I keep a red hot iron poker in my kitchen forge at all times. Just quench and cuppa.
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I make my tea as the founding fathers intended. By firing a few hundred rounds of ammunition and using the heat from the gun barrel to heat the water.
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This is tea, justice and the American waaay. This is why American main battle tanks are not built with interior accomodation for making tea, but British Challengers are.
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MFW the colonials butcher your language with the use of "Britishers" when "The British" or "Brits" are perfectly acceptable.
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If you didn't want us butchering the language, you should have tried harder in the war.
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Well now you butcher the language and your fellow countrymen. I'd say you learnt everything we had to teach you, aside from how to spell properly.
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Look at this lil brish crybaby.
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Britisher used to be fairly popular back in the day. Yanks are usually behind everything so it makes sense they'd still be using it
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Sorry mate, American English is more logical. Let them have that at least. I still prefer spoken British English though.
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Who wants a shorter tea break? Fuck this noise.
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I'd rather have a kettle anyways, less dangerous and faster. And it can also be very pretty.
Oh yes I am looking at you Fellow Stagg.
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I don't think anybody seriously thinks that hot H2O can have a different formulation. What, are we postulating the existence of isotopes for molecules now?
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Yeah, but it would taste nasty because my microwave’s minging.
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I have never seen a thread that is more dangerous to the Special Relationship and I am here. for. it. Brits just sat down to their post-dinner cup of tea and the Muricans just got up from lunch, just raging at each other. Move the nuclear clock one second closer to midnight, please.
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Chemically yes, physically no. Microwaved water is more buoyant because it has a heat gradient and rarely boils properly. It tends to get superheated and explode rather than boiling.
This is why tea bags float on top of microwaved water but not boiled water.
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Tea bags float in my kettle heated water as well. And for the 27 years I lived without a kettle and microwaved my water (maybe 2-3 times a week) I have never even once seen water get superheated and explode.
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I use my kettle 3 times before breakfast. So let's call it 6 times a day assuming I tail off towards bed time. That's 36 times a week assuming I spend 1 day away from home.
So what has taken you 27 years to achieve, I achieve in 2yrs and 3 months. Or to put it another way - I have 12x as many chances to get just the right conditions to flash boil the skin on my hands off.
American minds cannot comprehend the British commitment to a cuppa.
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This. In the microwave, water is heated from top and sides.
In a kettle, it is heated from the bottom. With warm water rising to the top and cold water sinking to the bottom, the water will circulate to evenly distribute heat. This is the main benefit of the kettle.
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I thought nearly any trace of minerals essentially reduced the likelihood of superheating down to near zero?
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I've microwaved water and there is always this foam at the top. Furthermore I think the kettle takes away some of the Particles since mine always has timescales after a few days.
Using a kettle is not just a British thing, it is always a good idea to boil water, let it cool down and then drink, I recently read that it also reduces micro plastics by at least %70
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It’s not. The kettle attracts and holds
heavy metalsminerals and lime that would remain in the water of your glazed or glass mug after microwaving.
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the problem with microwave is it doesn't get as hot uniformly
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lol
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158 comments