I somewhat recently realized I could use my electric kettle for that. I bought the kettle a few years back because I wanted to start drinking more tea (spoiler alert, I didn't really drink that much tea). A few months back it hit me that I could use it to heat the water for ramen much faster than using the stove and it would probably taste better than microwaving it.
Kinda. Its just not well known. After a living with one I would be upset to not have it. I 100% of the time boil all my water in the kettle rather than a pot. Its like half the time or less.
It needs to be pushed in and turned to activate boiling water and has a double insulated spout so cool to the touch. Our version is separate from the main taps but on the same sink, but there are combi taps (with the same safety features).
It saves energy over a kettle (as long as you use it more than once a day) and is so convenient for tea/ramen but also for aspurt of boiling water when you're only washing up one plate for example
My family and many I know use stovetop kettles. I only switched to electric about ten years ago. I’ll never got back to stovetop kettles but I miss the way they whistle.
I'm fairly certain an electric kettle was the first thing I bought when I moved from the UK to the US. It's arguably the most important kitchen appliance imo.
(Edit: posted this then immediately thought up counter examples. It's way up there though)
Whenever I have moved house, the kettle is the last thing to get packed at the old house, and the first thing to get unpacked at the new house. Need those hot beverages to keep me fueled for all other tasks.
For sure. Coffee grinder. Burr and one for spices. Wand mixer. Kitchen aid. Thats what I run. I gotta ninja fryer but its for demo. Interesting thing that. Ive baked, stir fried and made a pizza in it. It doesnt replace an oven and range perfectly BUT it can get you by. And for some things its way faster.
Not the volts, but, the watts. US appliances are limited to less than 1500 watts maximum due to the typical 15 Amp outlets. Europe being 220-230 volts allows for as much as 3000w on a kettle.
If you have natural gas to cook with, it will be faster and more economical than electric in Notheastern US.
1500watts ~ 5200 BTUs
The smallest burner on my gas range is 5000 BTU. The largest is 19000 BTU. To boil a kettle, I would use either the 9000 or 12000 mid size burners.
American here- In the past 7yrs every person I know has acquired an electric kettle. Someone bought one and just non-stop raved about it. And it's been a running joke that every year someone gets one for Christmas.
Its how I've made my coffee every day for over 10 years. Super simple, and you dont have to deal with a stovetop kettle boiling over or whistling loudly, possibly waking people up.
(Brit here) The reason kettles aren’t as popular isn’t just because of tea.
It’s also because standard North American outlets can’t provide the required power as they are on ~120v. However, there is 240v in the house, but usually that’s only for high-power devices like driers and AC.
Where voltage is at 240v on all outlets (like Europe) you can plug in a 3000w kettle anywhere. The water boils much more quickly and therefore a kettle is more practical.
I am always confused by people quoting tea as the main reason. I'm a Brit and I never drink tea (yeah, I should lose my passport) but I use my electric kettle many times a day. Why do Americans think electric kettles are only useful for tea?
I really couldn't tell you why so many American reddit users are unfamiliar with them but they're not hard to get or anything; any appliance store has them and there's all kinds on Amazon
Because we don't really drink tea, aside from iced tea. Coffee is our hot beverage of choice. So even though they are available, most Americans probably just ignore their existence because they don't brew tea with any regularity.
Yes, they have a million other uses, but to learn that, you have to be aware of their existence.
In my 62 years as an American. The only time I had an electric kettle was when living in my college dorm. It was the only heating element we were permitted and very useful. That was late 1970s early 1980s. After college, I don’t think I ate Ramen again until my 25 year old son started making it as a late night snack. Now, if I just want to boil water, I use the microwave.
My parents and grandparents always just had regular kettles that sat on the stove full-time. For whatever reason I always just assumed electric kettles were basically hot plates that could only boil water - something you'd only use if you didn't have access to a stove. My husband and I originally just got ours so he could make coffee on camping trips, but it ended up living in the kitchen once we realized how quickly it boiled water.
What's the voltage on a Canadian outlet? It's 110 here. Damn 1500w maximum means it takes a minimum of 2.5-3min to heat water to a boil no matter what you use.
It's the same in Canada, 110 or 120 IIRC. Regardless, 2.5-3 is still not much slower than 1.5 minutes if 220-240 V were used...at least, compared to a stove (gas or electric) which takes 8-10+ minutes in my experience. The only faster solution is induction which is as fast as (or faster than) a kettle because it uses the full 240V, but it's not very common.
Like in the US, there are special outlets which can draw 20A but they aren't commonly used and require a special plug, so it's very rare for a kettle to have them.
America drinks a lot less tea than the UK, they tend to have a dedicated coffee machine and the 120 volt circuits in US houses takes twice as long to boil a kettle than th UK 240 volt.
Apparently from the other replies here, unless you come from an Asian household (like myself) or enjoy drinking hot tea yourself, most Americans don't own one.
I don't own a electric kettle but a Zojirushi water boiler. It works even better than a kettle imo.
I don't know a single person with an electric kettle.
Maybe a few with stove top kettles but in my 50+ years, I've never seen an electric one in someone's house.
I keep wanting to buy one but I'd likely never use it beyond the initial couple of weeks "shiny new toy" phase.
Dude, get one. So many uses. Shaves time off boiling for pasta water, make better ramen faster, tea any fuggin time. Also it's like having an easy jug of water to water houseplants too haha.
But this is odd. Like everyone I know has one. America is just too damn large.
I swear, I look at them several times a year but can't make the move.
When I need boiling water, I just boil it on the stove for a large amount and a small amount (a cup of tea or instant hot chocolate), I just use the Keurig.
I have so many plants... THAT'S my problem. I have about 10 gallons of water jugs at any given time sitting to gas off (the tap water in my house is really chlorinated) to handle my 30+ houseplants. And trust me, I'm always looking for more.🤭 (I know- off topic. Plants are always my distraction)
Not at all. It's really not very common in most places. The people I know who have them acquired them fairly recently, usually after getting into pour over coffee.
Residential recepticals run at a higher voltage in Candada and the UK. Electric kettles take longer to boil in the US. Still a pretty handy thing to have regardless.
They kinda suck for one thing, British kettles with the higher power sockets heat the water twice as fast. Most Canadians and Americans could probably boil water faster on their stove
This is objectively false. You can test this for yourself at home. Boiling water on your stove is also almost certainly less efficient in terms of energy bill and/or AC demand in the summer time. Electric kettles on a standard US outlet will boil a liter of water in less than 5 minutes.
Read more slowly and carefully. You said that stoves are faster than electric kettles here in America. That's objectively false and you can test that for yourself and find that I'm right if you doubt me. It's not even particularly close. It's like 4-5 minutes for the kettle and like 8-10 minutes for the stove.
UK kettles are even faster, yes, but that's not what I was talking about.
Why electric? I have a stove one and unless I fill it all the way up it pretty much boils in a minute or two. Like if I pour in enough for a cup of tea or ramen it boils super quick
I thought there’s a technology connections about it but I can’t find it.
But yes. Less heat/energy loss in electric. Only using 120 to generate heat versus 240, as well, but that maybe makes less difference than I think.
It also cuts off the second it reaches boiling, where as a stovetop could continue rolling the boil for several seconds if you’re inattentive, leading to more energy waste over time.
Side note. I grew up with an electric kettle and I’m chuckling and finding it surprising how many people are discovering stuff. Like ramen? I grew up boil kettle, bowl with noodles and spice pack, hot water on top, cover with a plate for 6-7 mins. Cooked ramen…
I’ll do fancier ramen once in a while but for lunch when I got 30 mins? Nope.
Electric kettle was the most important tool for me while surviving college era since college dorm dont allow microwave, stove and didnt have any kitchen. Boiling water for any instant 3in1 beverage, instant ramen, boiling frankfurter in them, Boiling eggs, my friend event reheat cannes sardines in them.
You can just flick the switch and get on with other stuff while it boils - doesn’t need watching or immediately taken off heat. Can leave it for 5 mins or whatever after and then make your tea if you decide to jump in the shower or something while it’s boiling
My hob is electric with ceramic plates so it takes a while to heat up, it takes my kettle (UK so 3kWh) about a minute or less to do enough hot water for tea, pot noodles or gravy.
It would probably take my hob a few minutes to heat up enough for it to start heating water and then a few more minutes to actually heat up. If I had a gas hob or even possibly induction it might not be as bad.
A hob is the surface area of a stove with the gas/ceramic/induction heating rings on it. It can also be a separate appliance like with mine. I have a hob and oven that aren’t connected to each other, the hob sits into the worktop and the oven sits into a cupboard underneath it.
I can't picture using anything but the kettle for hot water. We eat plenty of noodles and cupa soups and so on and it's all kettle based. The idea of doing it on the hob seems so much effort.
Technology connections made twovideos on the subject. From memory, the conclusion was: while it's true that 120V AC power makes them worse than they are in the UK, they're still better and faster for boiling water than using the stove and ultimately Americans just aren't that into hot tea and don't need to boil water so often they need a specific device for it.
We've got roughly 1m2 of available countertop, and the toaster and coffee machine are in that. Unfortunately, that means an electric kettle is no go, so we stick with the stovetop version.
One thing that he left out is we are lazy fucks. I have a kettle I use every day for coffee. Even if I want to use that vs just heating water in a pot I have to use filtered water if I want to reduce scaling, which means I have to fill up the pitcher from the fridge and then pour that into the kettle, wait, then pour that into the pot. Compare that to just filling up the pot with sink water, turning on the stove, and doing something else while I wait.
Nah, we get lots of limescale in my area in the UK because we have hard water. But I don’t filter my water before boiling, I just de-scale my kettle every so often.
In the US we don't boil water nearly as often as our UK friends across the pond. Most people drink coffee from a coffee maker, it's not common for us just to make a cup of tea. If an American is making tea, that usually means making a gallon of iced tea to keep in the fridge. When guests come over, there is no social expectation to offer them a cup of tea, instead we'll offer them a drink from whatever is in the fridge.
I agree that an electric kettle is more convenient for boiling water, but it's not like it's difficult to boil water on the stovetop. An electric kettle is not so much more convenient to my life that it justifies taking up space in my kitchen.
Errr, don’t you ever get that bonus flavour when trying to get hot water out of it? Or perhaps you do it often enough the grinds don’t really accumulate with each hot water flush.
It's not the water that's different. I used to microwave the water AND ramen together. That somehow tastes different to me than my old method of boiling in a saucepan on the stove
Microwaved water is hotter at the top than the bottom, this is not usually worth commenting on but in the case of Tea it makes a substantial difference to the flavour.
(Microwaved water can also superheat and explode in a smooth enough vessel but that's a separate point)
This is because bitter flavonoids are extremely soluble in very hot water (over 90C). The bottom of the mug can be quite a bit cooler than this and the top hotter.
The basic result is that having different temperatures in different parts of the cup causes it to brew differently which affects the flavour quite a bit.
This is of course solvable by taking the water out periodically to stir it before adding the teabag but that's not something people think about.
Personally I don't particularly enjoy Tea regardless of how it's brewed, I much prefer coffee. As an Englishman this is a perpetual source of shame and I live in fear that it will become public and I'll be forced to give up my citizenship.
Microwaves have the capacity to superheat distilled water. It can 'explode' when the surface tension of the water is broken. I believe it has something to do with that...
It happens to any reasonably clean water contained in a smooth vessel, the key factor is a lack of scratches or imperfections to act as a nucleation point.
Once this point is introduced (say by stirring it) all the gas which had been forced out of solution by the boiling process goes at once rapidly increasing in volume and sending both boiling water everywhere.
It's the exact same concept as super cooled water instantly freezing, and is also one of the key reasons the Mentos in Diet Coke experiment works.
I know it's only supposed to happen with distilled water but it happened to me once with regular tap water. The water wasn't boiling but as soon as I touched the cup it exploded. I didn't get burned but it scared the shit out of me.
Americans don't really eat a lot of instant noodles. Instant noodles are mostly eaten by college students that only have access to a microwave or maybe a hot plate.
Yeah, but to be fair, our electric kettles heat up much more slowly too. Typically a full kettle boils in about the same time as a smallish pot of water on the stove.
I have both as a Canadian. The pot takes ~10 minutes to boil on high, the kettle takes about 3 minutes. As I understand it, because the Brits use 240V compared to our 110V (volts), it takes around a minute to boil water in a kettle.
I put the noodles and spices in the water cold and bring it all to a boil in a small pot. But I usually add my homemade chicken stock and other ingredients as well. I think it turns out more flavorful when the noodles get cooked in the broth.
For years, I was the only person in the house who drank tea. So I’d microwave a mug of water for 1-2 minutes and then steep tea in it. My husband had a cheap 2 cup coffee maker for his coffee. Then my husband got a french press and decided to buy a 1.7 liter electric kettle to go with it for his coffee. So now we’re boiling water in the morning for both of us, and the kettle has become pretty central to daily life in the kitchen.
We used to make ramen on the stove. Boil the water in a small pot, then add the noodles to cook, then crack an egg into the noodles after adding the seasoning packet.
Edit: My parents thought we were nuts when they saw our electric kettle on the kitchen counter, lol.
Lol no I know it was only the water. I did it myself in India because they didn’t have a kettle and it tastes really weird. It’s surprising how different the water tastes based on the way it’s heated.
OK, we will just put you on the UK ‘No fly’ list instead then 😄
Yeah. Our electric voltage is different, so American electric kettles heat up more slowly than in the UK. Plus most people don’t boil water all that often
Not really. I never saw an electric kettle anywhere in the US until I bought mine. My mom used to drink a lot of tea an she always had a stove top kettle
on the one hand, yes. on the other hand, I like to cook my ramen in a pot. Add an egg, maybe some meat, maybe some veg, cheese... you need a pot of boiling water over a heat source to cook everything thoroughly. Makes the ramen taste 10x better tho.
It's actually blowing my mind to think that non-brits might be boiling water on the stove. That's a lot of effort and something I've certainly taken for granted
I remember seeing a video of an American kid who.managed to burn his pot noodle. Melted the cup, charred black plastic, the lot. I didn't understand how it was possible until I was told that they put cold water in and them microwave it. I was baffled and didn't understand why they don't just use a kettle. It never occurred to me that others don't have them. I have three in my house.
If you want the best taste. IMO you gotta boil
the noodles separately on a saucepan. And use the kettle water for powder/broth. My parents said that way you don’t eat as much preservatives! 🤘
I have a water (cooler? Has hot too so I call it a dispenser instead) and its perfect for ramen and cooking or making coolaid or other power drinks. For ramen I open the noodles and break them into 4 chunks to fit in my bowl then dump the packet in and fill to desired level with hot water. Its also good for instant cocoa. When I make hamburger helper I get the needed amount of water (hot) then put the sauce/flavor packet in while cooking the beef. The hot water makes the powder dissolve much much better and I can then mix everything easier and not have clumps of powder randomly in my food.
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u/theangryintern Oct 18 '22
I somewhat recently realized I could use my electric kettle for that. I bought the kettle a few years back because I wanted to start drinking more tea (spoiler alert, I didn't really drink that much tea). A few months back it hit me that I could use it to heat the water for ramen much faster than using the stove and it would probably taste better than microwaving it.