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By Wilder Davies , Noah Kaufman , Sarah Karnasiewicz , and Lukas Volger
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In the United States, even the best electric kettles are much less popular than they are in English, Australian, and other kitchens of the world, where they’re considered an essential appliance for daily tea and everyday hot water needs. Evidently the reason for this is the lower voltage of American electrical outlets, which slows down the speed at which water comes to boil. (It must also be said that Americans have more of an affinity for blinged-out, huge rangetops, which make stovetop kettles less obtrusive during daily cooking.)
Ninja KT200 Precision Temperature Electric Kettle
Krups Smart Temp Electric Kettle
But with the enduring appeal of craft coffee and tea, more and more home cooks are finding that electric kettles are sure handy to have around. And once you start using one, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. An electric kettle boils water without needing supervision, thanks to built-in safety features and automatic shut-off controls, and they generate significantly less residual heat than a gas or electric stovetop during the process (a real boon for small kitchens that tend to trap heat and humidity). And many models look sleek enough to proudly keep on display on your kitchen counter.
These days, many models include variable temperature controls and presets for fine-tuning the water temperature for specific drinks (cooler water for green tea, hotter for black tea, somewhere in between for coffee), and some have Wifi- and Bluetooth-enabled features that allow for setting custom schedules and programming them remotely on your phone.
Electric kettles come in a huge range of prices, from $15 to over $300, and a range of sizes, shapes, and materials. In the past few years we’ve put over a dozen models to the test to choose the very best. But the efficacy of a kettle depends on what you’re using it for. So, to cover all the bases, we picked a best all-purpose kettle, a best gooseneck electric kettle (designed for pour-over coffee), and a best budget alternative. Read on for more on our top picks, and for the specifics of how we tested and what to look for in an electric kettle, scroll further down.
Best all-purpose electric kettle Best electric gooseneck kettle Best budget electric kettle Gooseneck vs. conventional kettles How we tested What we looked for Other electric kettles we tested The takeaway Why own an electric kettle?
Ninja KT200 Precision Temperature Electric Kettle
For two years now, the Ninja Precision Temperature Electric Kettle continues to perform well, boasting the best features at the best price point. The digital interface is extremely user friendly, with the ability to manually set temperatures between 105℉ and 212℉ in five degree increments, and it’s accurate across a wide range of tested temps between 160℉ and boiling. That’s the kind of control you typically only find in higher-end gooseneck kettles (the only other standard electric kettle we tested with this kind of functionality is the Wolf Gourmet, which costs three times as much). The Ninja also has presets for coffee and five types of tea, and the digital display switches between showing the current temperature of the water and the target temperature.
The boil time is just under four minutes using 72℉ water, the 1.7 liter capacity is large and in line with all the standard kettles we liked, with a flip-top opening that’s wide enough for fairly easy filling and cleaning. This isn’t the best electric kettle for pour-over coffee because it isn’t a gooseneck kettle, but the shape of the spout, though wide, offers very good pour control.
In terms of looks, the Ninja doesn’t have the slick display of say, the Zwilling kettle that we also enjoyed, but the stainless steel finish and a base that’s about as minimalist as it can be, while incorporating seven presets, is still pretty slick.
The cord is so short—13 inches—so you’ll be limited in terms of where you can put it in the kitchen. We don’t think it’s a deal breaker, since the base of the kettle itself really should be tucked away in a corner. Also, while the Ninja has a keep-warm setting that holds a temperature for up to 30 minutes, the heating element shuts off when the kettle is removed from the base (this is the same for every other standard kettle we tested). So despite the excellent pour control, it’s a bit tedious for pour-over coffee because the water temperature will drop throughout the brewing process once you grab the kettle, unless you continually reset it.
Size: 9.4” x 7.2'“ x 9.7” Capacity: 1.7 liters Power: 1500 watts Temperature range: 105℉-212℉ Presets: 7 Keep warm function: Yes Boil-dry protection: Yes Warranty: 2 years
The original Fellow Stagg EKG kettle is good—a high performing gooseneck with a helpful stopwatch for making pour-over coffee—and looks handsome on the countertop. The new Stagg EKG Pro is even better though, packing every useful feature we can think of into that same attractive package (it also comes in a “Studio” version with an all glass top on the base that looks particularly chic).
First the nuts and bolts: The boil time on the Stagg Pro has come down a lot from what we found in the original Stagg. Four cups of water reach boiling in just under four and a half minutes, and all the temperature settings we tested were confirmed for accuracy. It also offers excellent pour control, bested only by the Timemore Fish kettle (more on that below).
Now, for the bells and whistles that make it better than the rest of the gooseneck kettles. The EKG Pro has a temperature range from 104℉-212℉ and the optional “guide mode” settings for tea, Aeropress, pour-over, and boil make it fast and easy to program the kettle for its most common uses. Its pre-boil function brings the water up to a boil to sanitize it before dropping it down to the programmed level, and its hold timer can be set in 15 minute increments for up to an hour. It also has adjustments for whether users live at sea level or at altitudes up to 9900 feet above sea level (as we know, water has a lower boiling point the higher up you go). Finally, and this is perhaps our favorite feature, it has a scheduler. Making pour-over coffee in the morning is already a time consuming process, and the ability to have hot water waiting, at temperature for you when you wake up, makes for a much happier morning.
Already an attractive package, the Stagg Pro has a variety of aesthetic options to choose from: matte black, matte white, or black with walnut accents in the handle and lid. Like most everything Fellow makes, it’s a piece you’ll like looking at every day while it sits on the counter.
Nothing. Really nothing. We’d note here that it is a pricey kettle, but you really do get what you pay for here. We would have rated it simply as the best electric kettle overall except that we know there are reasons to prefer a larger capacity and wider spout design like the Ninja for things like adding pre-boiled water to a pot or steeping a large amount of tea.
Size: 11.1” x 6.8” x 7.7” Capacity: .9 liters Power: 1200 watts Temperature range: 104℉-212℉ Presets: 5 Keep warm function: Yes Boil-dry protection: Yes Warranty: 3 years if registered, 2 years if not
Krups Smart Temp Electric Kettle
The Krups Smart Kettle has a sleek, seamless look, made from a double-walled stainless-steel chamber that’s sheathed in plastic, which stays cool to the touch even when the contents are piping hot. It also has an accurate temperature display that elegantly glows from the side of the pot. With a capacity of 1.7 liters, or 12 cups, its size is similar to other standard kettles, but water boils more quickly in the Krups than many kettles we tested. While it doesn’t have the ability to program specific temperatures, it does have five presets (105°F, 155°F, 175°F, 195°F, and 212°F), and is the most inexpensive kettle we tested that offers the feature. Its display is clearly visible as the water climbs to temperature, so you could theoretically watch for it to reach a certain target. And compared to other standard kettles, it has more precision in its pour, such that you could get away with using it for pour-over coffee if necessary. It also has a “keep warm” setting, activated by holding the program button for a few seconds after your desired temperature is reached, which works for 30 minutes.
Our only nitpick with this model is its narrow opening; the open lid almost blocks the chamber while trying to fill it up with water, and is a bit of a nuisance when trying to reach in to clean the inner chamber.
Size: 10.83” x 6.89” x 8.66” Capacity: 1.7 liters Power: 1500 watts Temperature range: 105℉-212℉ Presets: 5 Keep warm function: Yes Boil-dry protection: No Warranty: 2 year manufacturer guarantee
Gooseneck kettles are becoming more and more commonplace in the kitchen, but you aren't alone if you're wondering why some people might choose a gooseneck kettle specifically. As mentioned above, gooseneck kettles are primarily marketed toward pour-over coffee fans who use Chemex brewers or other pour-over drippers in lieu of a drip coffee maker or espresso machine. With pour-over coffee you want to have greater control over the temperature of your water and control when pouring it—how and where you are saturating, but not submerging, your grounds.
The biggest disadvantage to a gooseneck kettle is that they’re typically more expensive and have smaller capacity (our top pick from Fellow can hold about half as much water as our favorite standard electric kettle). People who use their kettles to simply boil large amounts of water would be better off with a bigger, conventional kettle.
After unboxing all the kettles we examined their designs, noting if they opened easily, if the opening was large enough to facilitate filling and cleaning, and if the carafe felt sturdy and long lasting. Then we read through the instruction manuals to get a feel for what features, if any, the different kettles came with. Finally, it was time to heat up some water. We timed how long it took boiled four cups of tap water making sure all water started between 72℉-73℉. If the kettle had presets we heated to each of them and checked their accuracy with a Thermapen. Next, because some user reviews we read complained of a metallic taste from some kettles we tasted water from each. Finally, we cleaned each kettle, noting how easy or difficult it was to get our hands inside.
We set a stopwatch on every kettle and then we measured the temperature of the water to confirm that it really was 212°F.
There were enough Amazon reviewers complaining of metallic-tasting water or other “off flavors” coming through their kettles during brewing that we let the water in each kettle cool slightly before drinking it and noted any unusual flavors.
When the models offered temperature control, either manual or preset, we tested the kettles at every preset offered and measured the results of each with the Thermapen to gauge accuracy.
When you’re dealing with boiling liquids, ease of pouring isn’t just an aesthetic issue, it’s a safety one too. When using each kettle, we considered how the carafe felt in our hands (was it balanced? did it have a nice grip?) and also how easily it poured. Did it leak or spill? With the gooseneck kettles especially—because they’re specifically meant to deliver more control—we kept an eye on the precision and the consistency of the water flow.
Yes, you’re just boiling water. Nevertheless, electric kettles do get dirty over time—thanks mainly to hard water buildup—so regular cleaning is important. With that in mind, we paid attention to how easily we could wipe down the carafes and whether we could easily get our hands inside to scrub hard to reach corners. Some inexpensive kettles have exposed heating elements (basically, a coil of tubing that can be cumbersome to clean), so as a rule we tried to avoid those. For similar reasons, we also preferred cordless electric kettles that could detach from their corded charging base.
On a basic level, we considered the construction of the kettles and the ease of use. Did they feel sturdy? Were they well-proportioned or bulky? Did they remain stable on the counter while boiling or did they wobble about? Were the carafes easy to fill? And once filled, did they have a window or a fill-line that made it simple to see how much was inside? Did they offer any appealing extra features, like chimes to signal the end of a cycle or preset temperature settings for common beverages like green tea, black tea, and French press coffee?
At about $70, the Govee is a pretty solid budget choice for a gooseneck kettle, and this model is equipped with “smart” Wifi- and Bluetooth-enabled features. Using the Govee Home app, you can program it for specific temperatures, set a schedule for it to fire up, and activate its keep warm setting, a helpful feature if you ever needed to make back to back batches of pour-over. That said, these particular features require the Govee app — otherwise, you’re limited to the machine’s presets for green, oolong, coffee, and boil. Depending on your affinity for smart appliances, this may not bother you, but the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro has all the same features (and more), and doesn’t require pulling your phone out of your pocket.
The Peach Street kettle is an easy-to-use, boil-only kettle, with a large 1.8 quart capacity; it has legions of fans on Amazon. We didn’t find it to boil water as quickly as advertised (taking about a minute longer than the 3 minute promise), but it still boils fast, and we liked the blue light that illuminates while it heats up, helpful for making it obvious when the appliance is in use. It has a removable mesh strainer over the spout, which might be helpful if you wish to brew tea directly inside it (though most tea experts don’t recommend making tea this way). That said, the spout is a bit clunky. Because it’s flush with the top of the pitcher, its pour is a few inches further afield than we expected it to be, and with the water only built for boiling, it will likely spurt out, still boiling while you pour — so it requires caution and some getting used to. But if all you need is a large kettle for boiling water, the Peach Street Kettle will certainly do.
Peach Street Electric Glass Kettle
Our former top pick has a lot going for it in the looks department, but the performance stats back it up as a solid kettle for everyday use. In terms of the aesthetics it has a strong “Designed by Apple in California” vibe. Some design choices seem informed by their function, like the wide opening, which makes it easy to reach your hand in for cleaning. The double-walled interior of the kettle remains cool to the touch while in use, and the machine is nice and quiet. In terms of performance it demonstrated precise temperature control, a fast boiling time, boil-dry protection and a keep-warm setting.
It has six preset options between 104℉ (for warming baby formula) and 212°F, which is a solid range that covers most use cases, though doesn’t feature the customizability of the Ninja. With respect to the baby formula warming feature, because it has a 6¼ cup capacity, the kettle is actually large enough for a baby bottle to be entirely submerged inside. All in all we still highly recommend the Zwilling kettle for its design and performance, but found the Ninja offered a better value.
Zwilling Enfinigy Cool Touch Kettle Pro
Timemore makes a range of great gear for making pour-over coffee and their gooseneck kettle offered the best pour control of any kettle we tested. Combined with its small footprint and beautiful minimalist look you might think it would take a top spot here, but the touchscreen slider used to adjust the temperature is frustratingly hard to set. After several mornings trying to dial it in at 200°F we never quite managed to succeed and just left it at 198°F. A degree here or a degree there is not enough for us to say you should avoid this kettle, especially considering everything it has going for it, but it does mean that it could not overtake the Fellow as our favorite.
Timemore Fish Electric Gooseneck Kettle
The Oxo interface is a simple twist dial with a button in the center that makes for a straightforward user experience. All you do is twist the dial for the desired temperature and press the button to start heating. If you feel like you made a mistake, you just press the center button again to turn it off. When the kettle is finished heating, it will beep gently and hold temperature for 30 minutes before automatically switching off. As for safety features, the kettle also senses when there isn’t water left in the pot and will automatically switch off the heating element earlier.
The long, slender pour spout performed exactly as a gooseneck should, emitting a fine, even stream of water. Gooseneck kettles tend to be on the smaller side, and this one is no different with its 1-liter capacity. While not quite as hi vis as a glass kettle, the water level line is easy to see while filling. The Oxo’s big win, though, is in brew time. It managed to heat 4 cups of water in a speedy 4 minutes, whereas others, like an older favorite from Bonavita, can take close to 7 minutes. Before the release of the Stagg EKG Pro and all its extras this was our favorite gooseneck kettle and we still recommend it, especially at a price that’s half of the Stagg Pro.
OXO Brew Adjustable Temperature Electric Pour-Over Kettle
Fellow’s original beautiful gooseneck kettle elicited audible sighs of admiration when we unboxed it in the test kitchen, and there’s no doubt about it: The Fellow Stagg EKG is a fine piece of industrial design. We loved the sleek, matte black finish and the minimalist, turntable-esque design of the square base with its smooth radial knob and bright digital temperature readout. Though it wasn’t the fastest to boil, clocking in at 6 minutes 40 seconds to reach 212°F, the Fellow Stagg EKG was in line with other kettles we liked. We were impressed by additional features like the generous manual temperature control (at 135℉ to 212°F, it offered one of the widest in the field), the one-hour temperature hold setting, and the built-in “brew stopwatch” that allows you to monitor how long your brew has steeped. The kettle performed consistently and accurately during temperature tests and the slender spout yielded a nice, even pour. Both senior editor Noah Kaufman and associate director of commerce Emily Johnson used it in their kitchens for multiple years and report that it holds up well, even with frequent use. It’s about 25% less expensive than the Stagg EKG Pro, and ultimately we just thought all the new features made the Pro a better choice.
Fellow Stagg EKG Electric Pour-Over Kettle
This could work as a budget gooseneck option at only $70 (at the time of publishing), but the water rushed out a little quicker than we’d like in something you’d use to brew pour-over coffee and the boil time was slower than a median competitor, by about 30 seconds. It also doesn’t offer manual temperature settings, which is expected at this price. It’s a good deal, but if there is $30 more in your budget we’d recommend the Oxo.
If you’re looking for a nothing-fancy electric kettle that performs well and is easy to use, this Hamilton Beach model is a solid choice. In fact, this used to be our top budget pick, until its price shot up from $50 to over $80. Still, it’s easy to use because it has clearly labeled temperature buttons for a wide variety of functions like green, white, oolong, black, herbal teas, coffee, and hot cocoa, as well as the ability to program specific temperatures. It is easy to lift, pours well, and the handle is comfortable to grip.
Hamilton Beach Glass Electric Kettle
Like all Wolf Gourmet appliances, the True Temperature looks and feels like a luxury item and comes with a price tag to match. We’ll say off the bat that while we really liked the performance of the kettle—a fairly quick boil time of 4:15, accurate temperatures across many settings, good pour control—$300 is a lot for a kettle. That said, it did the Ninja one better and offered the ability to set temperature in single degree increments, the only standard kettle to do that. It also had the widest opening, making it the easiest to fill and clean. That’s because in addition to the wide opening, the top came completely off instead of being hinged to the kettle itself. The Wolf comes with only four temperature presets and does not include a setting for coffee—a good simplification in our opinion since this style of kettle isn’t really designed for coffee.
Wolf Gourmet True Temperature Electric Kettle
While it doesn’t offer the same degree of manual temperature control and the build quality is nowhere near as solid as our favorite gooseneck kettles, this model from Willow & Everett was a solid, inexpensive competitor in our tests. We particularly liked that the touch-sensitive temperature preset buttons are labeled with suggestions for use (pour-over coffee, white tea, etc.) and that gooseneck provided smooth, easy flow.
Willow & Everett Gooseneck Kettle with Temperature Control
The Cuisinart PerfecTemp Cordless Electric Kettle is a great budget pick, but it didn’t come in as the winner because the Hamilton Beach kettle performed just as well and was around $25 cheaper. Still, the Cuisinart PerfectTemp Stainless-Steel Electric is an effective, fast kettle with a variety of preset, one-touch temperature controls, a high-quality finish, and a great pouring mechanism. You wouldn’t go wrong buying it.
Cuisinart PerfecTemp Stainless Steel Electric Kettle
We found the lack of temperature settings on the Bodum gooseneck kettle to be disqualifying—you don’t want to brew pour-over coffee with boiling water and it’s hard to tell exactly when the water in the Bodum is ready for brewing.
The other model we tried from Fellow, called the Corvo EKG electric kettle, looks similar to the Stagg without the gooseneck spout. Instead it features the standard pitcher spout, which, obviously, makes it easier for filling pots with water, but harder for precision pours. It is beautifully designed and would look great on your counter—and has the same manual temperature control and ability to maintain temperature for a long time as the Stagg. It’s a great kettle, but its small size (it’s .9 liters like the Stagg) makes it less appealing to cooks who want an all-purpose kettle for cooking as well as making coffee.
Fellow Corvo EKG Electric Kettle
Like all products made by the iconic Italian company Smeg, the ’50s Retro Electric Kettle is super cute and comes in a variety of colors—in this case eight. But the body of the kettle is a little bulky (not heavy, but slightly awkward to maneuver) and the pitcher spout wasn’t as easy to control as some of the other non-goosenecks we tried. It’s also expensive with a $190 price tag at the time of publishing. The kettle did heat up water fairly quickly (about 4 minutes 30 seconds), so if you’re looking for a very specific aesthetic or you have a kitchen full of Smeg products you’d like to add to, this kettle is a good choice.
Smeg ‘50s Retro Electric Kettle
Kitchenaid makes a couple electric kettles and we chose this one specifically for its looks. We knew it was a simple hot water kettle—it doesn’t come with any temperature settings—but it has that classic English countryside kettle design that is a whole mood for tea drinkers who are into it. And while its design delivered on aesthetics it didn’t on performance. The kettle boiled water quickly, which is great, but the opening is quite small, which would make filling and cleaning somewhat of challenge, but that challenge was made all the worse by the fact that the handle is fixed, it doesn’t rotate off to the side, so you need particularly small hands to get into it and you need to fill it at an angle.
The Breville Crystal Clear Electric Kettle boiled 4 cups of water in just under 4 minutes and the namesake crystal clear body revealed that it reached a seriously rolling boil before the automatic-off feature clicked in. But it doesn’t have any temperature settings and costs about the same as the Ninja
Breville Crystal Clear Electric Kettle
The Oxo Cordless Glass Adjustable Temperature Kettle won in the general kettle category in 2021 and is a wonderful kitchen appliance. It has many similar features to the Ninja, but costs a bit more and only has a temperature range that runs from 170°F to 212°F.
OXO Cordless Glass Electric Adjustable Temperature Kettle
Cosori’s standard electric kettle with temperature presets looks almost identical to the Hamilton Beach we chose as our budget pick both in terms of the placement of the preset buttons on the handle and the glass carafe that lit up blue during heating. As with the Hamilton Beach we really liked having the temperature presets in such an inexpensive package, however the actual temperature readings came in a little off (209°F on the boil setting, 205°F on the 200°F setting). Those were the largest variances in temperature we found. The Hamilton Beach was a little bit less expensive and the keep warm on the Hamilton Beach is intuitively placed. On the Cosori you have to hold down the Start/Cancel button in order to engage it, which is neither intuitive nor particularly convenient.
COSORI Electric Kettle Temperature Control
It is indeed a basic electric kettle, but if all you’re looking for is something to boil water and you don’t want to pay much for it, Amazon's kettle will get the job done for you. The opening is a little small and it doesn’t come with a chime to alert you that the water has heated (although it does have a blue light that turns off when the kettle does), but it’s speedy and it’s cheap, a combination that certainly has its place.
Amazon Basics Electric Glass and Steel Kettle
The Bonavita Digital Variable Temperature gooseneck Kettle is another strong performer and former winner. When it comes to heating water it’s still a great choice and we recommend it without reservation. The interface and design just can’t compete with what Fellow or Oxo have to offer in the gooseneck department though.
Bonavita 1.0L Variable Temperature Electric Kettle
The Bonavita Cosmopolitan, which had a borosilicate glass body and improved controls, was still not as fast as the new Oxo gooseneck kettle.
The Chefman is a good budget kettle with handy preset functions for different types of tea and a multicolor light display. We also thought the removable tea infuser would delight tea lovers, but seeing as it’s much slower than the Hamilton Beach model, which is just as affordable and offers the same range of functions, we felt that this one fell short.
You may think that an electric kettle is exclusively useful for making a batch of coffee or several cups of tea. But think about how many times you have watched a big pot of water, waiting for it to boil so you can cook pasta. If you had an electric kettle, you’d have boiling water ready faster.
Blanching vegetables? Making soup? Cooking corn? Poaching chicken? Boil your water in your electric kettle and then pour it into the pot you need. Electric kettles are constructed to boil water faster than a pot or stovetop kettle.
Though they say a watched pot never boils, a pot of water on the stove can boil over if you don’t watch out (except this one)! An electric kettle will never do that. Most electric kettles have an auto shut off when the water has reached a full boil. Which means you can fill it with a liter of water, turn it on, and leave the room to do something else. No worry, no mess.
“Most mornings, turning on my electric kettle is the first thing I do in a bleary, sleepy state, and come back in a few minutes to fix myself coffee or tea. Not only is it easier, it’s also safer, because sometimes I let myself get back in bed and fall asleep after getting up to boil water, which would be a serious hazard if I were using the stove,” says senior food editor emeritus Anna Stockwell.
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