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Too much clutter on my counters already. I can just leave the kettle on the oven.
I have one in the basement for my hot drink station.
Because we have microwaves.
Uh we do.
Yep. I’ve got 2. One in the house for hot chocolate, and one in my woodshop for um, woodshop things.
I’m also a woodworker. What do you use a kettle for out there? Mixing your own shellac or wax or something?
I mainly use it in the winter as a source of hot water when I’m working with 2 part epoxy to warm up the bottles so it isn’t as thick and mixes easier.
Shellac dissolves quite readily in alcohol at room temperature.
Yeah even with our slow, low wall-voltage, having a dedicated boiler is fucking nice. Takes up some counter space, but it’s worth it.
Cocoa, tea, coffee, whatever - it’s nice. And the vibe is nice.
Agreed, works well for serving dried oatmeal to a table as well - the bottom doesn’t get quite as hot as a stove kettle or microwaved container.
Most of my friends have electric kettles. I like a nice pot of tea or french press of coffee / yerba mate yet I still have an auto espresso machine.
I thought for a second that you said you boiled coca cola
Not less bad then the acrual written thing.
Cocoa? In a kettle?
Lol not IN the kettle, but made with the hot water you get from the kettle.
Also I’m talking hot cocoa, not hot chocolate. Two different things, one is with water, one is with milk, at least in my casually defined book.
I only know both in the form of milky chocolate.
And some are intended to be stirred into water because it contains powdered milk.
Do you know the brand Swiss Miss? https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0610/5464/8564/products/image_86ef1f17-7772-48b2-a5a5-248a650eff8d.jpg?v=1677099961
Very cheap. Very nostalgic. Very shelf stable hahaha
Edit: also this stuff https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81YpaO6M8QL._SL1500_.jpg
Insanely nostalgic for long roadtrips where you’d stop at a rest stop in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and stretch, and there’d be people with hot water, styrofoam cups, and packets of tea, coffee, cocoa, and cider for free. Core memory, right there.
Not really.
But understandable.I had some Lindt hot choco packets and at first also used hot water.
But the result was so thin I quickly switched to milk (as it should be).
Probably needed some more milk powder to compensate for the water.Oooo, I haven’t had the Lindt ones. Nicest packet ones I’ve had are the Ghirardelli ones that come in different flavors. Those are always delicious. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled at the store for the Lindt ones though.
What’s the best hot chocolate/cocoa you’ve ever had?
Why do people think we don’t use these? Almost everyone I know has one.
No you don’t, the justice department found no evidence of kettle use
I have a kettle sitting on my counter right now for use, along with my coffee maker and the MLK files.
Case closed! Wrap it up everyone. Pay no attention to the single missing page in the Walmart catalogue submitted as evidence.
We…do.
At one point many years ago, there was an fad for a “hot shot” small appliances. I guess it’s a similar functionality to a kettle but with more moving parts. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared though.
Holy crap, they still exist!
My mom still uses hers. It’s great.
So does my mom, but hers is really ancient.
I used to like them but since I got the kettle, I prefer
- more convenience for multiple cups or for ramen, more flexibility
- no plastic to drink
- fewer moving parts
- easier to empty, dry, put away
- it looks cooler
I have one too! It’s super old but works amazingly for small things like individual cups of tea or hot chocolate for the kids. Got it as a white elephant gift that someone thought was a joke. I was super excited to get it. We have several kettles too.
Wow, exactly as I remember it … from decades ago!
USAians drinking coke instead of tea. Makes sense. Guess making a good cuppa takes too long to fill the immediate need for another sugar dump 🤷♂
I’ve used one for ages, it especially helps when boiling water on the stove. I heat it in the kettle first and then pour it in the stove pot. So much faster!
But one more thing to own, store, manage, for a little convenience.
I can boil 2 cups of water in the microwave in 5 minutes. Or 4. Takes about the same amount of time.
First of all there are real risks to boiling water in the microwave, but I get why most people ignore them. Second of all, not ALL of us have microwaves (I don’t), third of all, it’s not “one more thing” if it’s an appliance used every day for multiple reasons. You seem to have an odd hate towards kettles.
Five fucking minutes OMFG. Just get a 240V outlet in the kitchen so you can plug in a proper kettle.
You can’t. You can’t use European 240V kettles in the US because of phase differences (or something - an electrician told me so and declined the job to give me an outlet even though he accepted and performed other work for me).
No one to my knowledge has marketed a 240V kettle for the US market. It’s a business idea for anyone who wants to pick it up.
The issue isn’t the voltage. It is the wattage. UK kettles draw 3kW. US outlets are (typically) only rated for 2.4kW. We can easily get dedicated 30A, 120v outlets that will provide 3.6kW.
US 240v is not the same as UK 240v.
The UK uses a single live phase, (240v with respect to ground), and a neutral (0v with respect to ground).
The US uses two live phases. Each phase is 120v with respect to ground, but they are 180 degrees apart from eachother. Phase to phase is 240V, but either phase to ground is 120v.
A UK kettle expects its neutral phase to be at the same potential as ground, which can’t happen in the US without a 1-to-1 transformer
Sounds like it would amount to much the same thing: you’d need some special wiring, and a kettle made to take advantage of it. No one has made that kettle.
Just curious though, since you seem to understand electricity better than I.
If it’s as you say, and all we need to do to get more energy is to raise the amps, then why do Americans still install 240V lines for laundry machines, ovens, large power tools, etc etc? Why don’t any of those just do what you said, and operate 120V at 30 amps?
Watts are a unit of power. Regardless of voltage, if your appliance is drawing 3000 watts, it is heating up the same as any other device that draws 3000 watts.
Wires are not sized on the number of watts they can carry. They are sized on the number of amps they carry. If a wire is sized for 10amps, and you are using 12v, you can only get 120 watts through it. Increase the voltage to 120v, and you can get 1200 watts through that same wire. Increase to 240v, and you can get 2400 watts from that wire. The higher the voltage, the less copper you need to carry it. You need thicker insulation to handle that increased voltage, but insulation is cheap. It’s more dangerous to humans who come into contact with the wires, but you can build in additional methods to restrict human contact, such as fancy plugs and sockets.
The UK and Europe had a severe copper shortage when they rebuilt after WWII. They standardized on 240V to reduce the size of wires they needed in their homes. Instead of dozens of, low-amp circuits, they installed only a couple high-amp circuits for their entire home. They designed their household wiring so that the same circuit that powers the alarm clock on their nightstand is also used for their 3000-watt space heater.
They further reduced copper consumption by using undersized wire in a “ring” circuit instead of properly sized wire in a “branch” circuit. Failures in ring circuits are extraordinarily dangerous, because there is no immediate indication that they have failed. Each outlet receives power from two sides of the ring; if one side fails, they draw all their power from the other side, overloading the ring.
The US solution to these problems is intrinsically safer household wiring. We threw copper at the problem, because we had the copper to throw. But what we got in return was a vastly safer system. We managed to get a 240v system that only carries the risks of a 120v system.
I was tempted. If 240v kettles or other small appliances were generally available, I would have.
People add all sorts of silly stuff to their kitchens, like pot filler faucets, but one or more 240v outlets would add real value
Power usage might be different though.
110v power takes forever. 240v in europe is much quicker.
Cause I’m not cooking noodles backwards
The thing we use hot water for the most is coffee, which has its own device. For the few times we would need it for something else we either use the stove top kettle we inherited from grandma or the microwave.
Having said that, it’s not like electric kettles don’t exist here. They seem to be becoming more popular.
I do. So convenient and low maintenance.
I think the better question is; why is there a weird stereotype in Europe that Americans don’t use these? We have one and just about everyone I know who regularly drinks tea does as well. It might not have been as prevalent a decade ago, but these are extremely common now.
Now coffee drinkers than tea
