We have an induction stove too and it's great. But the kettle is still significantly faster at boiling water.

I'm kind of surprised by this. An induction stove turns the entire kettle into a resistive element so water boils super quickly.

At least with EU induction stoves, so 230V.

Ours is a Smeg model. The two large rings are 2.3kW, with a outer booster ring to 3kW. The problem is if I'm just boiling water for my tea with a saucepan, only the inner ring is triggered. I can put a large pan on there and get 3kW to match the 3kW kettle, but then I've got to warm a large metal pan too, whereas the kettle has very little thermal mass and is lightweight and easy to fill too.

A properly sized tea kettle would solve that but since you already have the electric kettle there’s no sense in buying a new stovetop vessel until the electric kettle burns itself up.

> At least with EU induction stoves, so 230V.

US induction cooktops/stoves are almost always 240V, unless you get a little countertop burner.

> I'm kind of surprised by this.

As am I. The first time I put a small pot of water on my induction cooktop and turned it on maximum power, I laughed out loud. If I'm only doing enough for a cup of coffee or tea, it starts boiling so fast you don't want to step away.

One small thing I'd like to add, I actually forgot about this.

> US induction cooktops/stoves are almost always 240V, unless you get a little countertop burner.

EU induction cooktops/stoves are actually 380/400V.

It doesn't change much, because the amperage might be lower, I don't know.

I just wanted to add that bit of trivia :-)

US induction stoves are 230V as well.

Still, putting the stove on to make a cup of tea seems wrong.

That seems purely emotional. An induction stove heats faster than a kettle at almost the same efficiency.

No, it really does not. A typical induction stove has ~2kW of power on each element, and is ~20% less efficient at heating water than the resistive kettle.

This makes it about half as fast at boiling water.

You made me check and adjust my other comment:

https://www.aeg.co.uk/kitchen/cooking/hobs/induction-hob/ikb...

3.7kW for the main element.

Also, why would it be less efficient? Due to the distance?

Note that the 3.7kW element can only provide all that to a single vessel if it covers the entire area of the element.

The resistive element submerged in the water dumps very nearly 100% of energy into the water. The stove heating the kettle has many more sources of loss, but mostly that it first heats a piece of metal, which is not fully submerged in water.

In theory, in practice the induction heating on a regular pan is faster than my kettle by almost three times. YMMV on type of kettle and induction hob used. But it generally means that if you live in the US and you have an induction hob, there is absolutely no reason to buy a kettle.

You might want to decalcify your kettle.

Edit: Wait. Are you using a frying pan to heat tee water to make it faster?

My experience with US induction stoves is limited but I believe it can also deliver 3.5kW on boost. My induction stove boosts to 3.8kW for heating which beats my kettle significantly. I also measures the efficiency and it’s quite comparable.

What is the power of your kettle?

2200 Watts.

A British kettle on 230 volts boils enough water for a cup of tea in about 45 seconds. (3 kilowatt heater, 300 ml of water, theoretically takes 33 seconds, but slightly longer because it has to heat the body of the kettle too)

I wonder if it's possible to replicate that circuit in a USA house but still stay within code. I'd love to make my tea faster!

Install a tumble dryer socket in your kitchen. Then buy a British 240 volt 3 kilowatt kettle from eBay and wire on a US tumble dryer plug (NEMA 6-15) - hooking the brown and blue wires from the kettle to the two line pins.

This would be both code legal, safe and functional.

Sweet, I had no idea it would be that straightforward. Thank you for the information!

I use a Panasonic flatbed microwave to heat precisely the volume of water I want by filling the tea cup(s) I want.

Two minutes on high (1100 watt microwave output from, IIRC 1800 watt input) per cup. So usually two minutes for the one cup of I intend to drink.

Every electric kettle I’ve ever owned has a minimum volume of at least two cups. Who bother heating two cups if I’m only going to drink one at a time.

Tasmania (AU), 240v / 100amp supply to residential is standard.

Any kettle with a flat bottom (no exposed heating element) can be used with far less water than the 'min' line - and some models don't have a min line at all.

All new kettles have boil-dry protection as well, so they won't be damaged with no water at all.

Might be time to upgrade the kettle. I really want one with temperature setting and insulation.

Pretty much. My office building was formerly a woodworking shop and has wiring for 220V. Long ago I bought a laser printer on eBay. The seller omitted to mention it was a 220/240V model (probably why it was cheap). Laser printers unlike most appliances are not dual voltage because the fuser is run directly off the ac supply line. So I wired in a 6-20 outlet and changed the plug. Worked fine for many years. I also have a table saw running from a 6-20 outlet. There is a 6-15 NEMA type that presumably would provide a UK compatible supply. I think the problem might be how to provide in-wall cabling that's to code for 220V. In my case I already had conduit with THHN wire.

Not necessarily to code, consult your electrical engineer and lawyer before doing your own wiring, etc.

> I think the problem might be how to provide in-wall cabling that's to code for 220V

That's no problem, standard romex nm-b is rated up to 600V. The only real difficulty in doing that in most US homes is that it's all or nothing. You'd have to upgrade all receptacles on the circuit to 240V. Depending on when your home was built, the kitchen might well have several circuits for the wall receptacles (even just one circuit per receptacle, not terribly uncommon in my area), which makes converting one of the circuits to 240V pretty trivial.

Given how many appliances these days use switching power supplies capable of a wide range of voltage, I wouldn't be totally surprised if it was possible to wire an entire house with nothing but 6-15 or 6-20 receptacles and not have too much difficulty sourcing compatible appliances.

Most kitchen appliances require the right voltage. They normally have a heater or motor driven direct from the AC voltage.

Most devices you'd use outside the kitchen usually will work on any voltage - with notable exceptions being vacuum cleaners, washing machines and fan heaters.

For sure you'd want to be careful. My Kitchenaid stand mixer would certainly be unhappy if it were plugged into a 240V outlet, but Kitchenaid makes a 240V version that I could replace it with. A lot of work, but technically doable.

Probably about as likely as wiring up DC receptacles throughout the house. Zero.

I believe that US code requires a dedicated circuit for all 240v outlets. Only 120V outlets can be chained. The only people who use 240v outlets are planing on using all the power it can provide, if they want a second outlet they want a second circuit as well.

Check with your local codes of course. Even if the local codes allow it, your building inspector may not.

12-2 NM/Romex is fine for 240V (120V+120V), and is commonly used for things like large ACs, heaters, etc. Mark the white wire with red electrical tape at both ends.

I wonder how does this compare to boiling water in a regular coffee mug in microwave oven?

yeah but it is 5 times faster than a kettle

Isn’t that the traditional method with a kettle that whistles?

To be honest for the many years I lacked a proper stovetop kettle it felt wrong to not have the whistle. Though I also missed the auto-shutoff.

Huh? That's how people did it for all of eternity until about 75 years ago.

We drink an unbelievable amount of tea. Firing up the hob each time would be silly, when you can fill a kettle to the minimum and have boiling water in an incredibly short time. Not much more than half a minute with a good modern kettle.

That sounds like a good use case for an insta-hot tap. No filing anything, always ready to go.

It does in theory. There are a few taps in the UK that are marketed as being able to produce essentially boiling water (which is what our typical tea bags require). Though we tend not to put quite so much money into our kitchens.

And we would wear those things out, I swear! :-)

I think Americans think British people drink tea out of poshness, when it is the opposite. Most of us also like a posh tea now and then, some of us drink expensive leaf teas... but the majority of what we drink is optimised for fast brewing off boiling water: tea that goes black in the mug in thirty seconds in boiling water.

There is a concept here of "builders tea" -- the kind of thing a builder drinks -- which is sort of the functional equivalent of cheap electric coffee-pot coffee. That is, it's the kind you know isn't the best, but you will still drink it, and that cuts across all class lines. [0]

There is a parallel thing: the "tea urn", which is like an enormous samovar with a lever -- that you still will see in industrial canteens and at church coffee mornings and at gatherings that aren't at cafés or restaurants. Those things actually need a different kind of tea, which brews more slowly and at slightly lower temperatures. The end result is a bit like builders tea. But we wouldn't bother with them at home.

[0] We do absolutely drink coffee at home, but we tend to skip over that coffee-pot coffee in the UK, to slightly more expensive ways of making coffee or to dreadful Nespresso machines; you'll see more of those or Bialetti mokas here; old style electric coffee pot percolators are now rather unusual. But Alan Adler's Aeropress particularly caught on here among coffee nerds, because that is really compatible with electric kettle life.

Nobody heard of Quooker?

An induction stove is still really inefficient at heating water, compared to an electric kettle with the resistive element in the water and 3kW of power.

There is a small difference but not much. I compared my 230V Kettle with my 400V induction stove and it’s within 5% or so. Obviously it depends a bit on what pot you use. I’m guessing most losses come from the lack of insulation on the metal pot.

Why? I'm not sure I understand the logic.

For example this: https://www.emag.ro/plita-cu-inductie-aeg-hob-hood-60-cm-ikb... (in the EU), at max power can supposedly reach 7.3kW.

Edit: Checked per element, max 3.7k, more than enough anyway.

For the induction cooktop, there's circuitry to drive the induction system, which then creates magnetic fields, which then interacts with the metal pot, which gets hot and heats the water on one side while radiating heat into the air on the other. There's a lot of stages for losses here.

On an electric kettle, there's just a heating element, often directly bathed in the hot water.

There's absolutely less losses with the electric kettle, so for a 3kW kettle and a 3kW induction cooktop the kettle is slightly more efficient. Slightly.

The contact surface of the pot is much larger, though, I'd expect. It's also not localized.

Hmm, I measured it once (temp increase over time, computed back into watts, compared to a watt meter on the induction cooker), and I found that of the 3,5kW I put in, 80% actually convert to temperature increase in the water. That is not too bad, is it? Are electric kettles more efficient?

They should make turbo kettles that hook up to 3 phase power like a stove. That seems like it would be fun. Why stop at 3kW, when you can have 11?

Now I want a kettle designed for a J1772 EV plug. Why stop at 11kW when you can have 19kW?

My in-laws have fried three different induction hobs boiling a kettle on them. Good quality brands too, they just can't seem to cope with frequently being set to max.

Are people actually using induction stoves for tea, though?

For me, a big selling point of the kettle is that you don't have to clean it and stow it after every use, so I would still use the kettle even if it was slower (maybe no longer for pasta or when cooking in general though)...

edit: I guess you could just get a teapot that is induction-compatible, didn't think of that.

You don't really have to clean a pot either if you just used it to boil water.

Mostly just descaling, but cleaning it with soap and water isn't going to do much about that - you need an acid like vinegar or citric acid.

There's no chance I'm bothering with getting out a stovetop kettle every time I want a tea. Far easier to just have a separate kettle

You don’t put the kettle away, it lives on the stove!

My kitchen is not big enough for that. I need to use that space