Fellow's Stagg Kettle Review

Alternatives: If you want something to compete with the Stagg’s looks, you’re out of luck. Nothing does. But, Cosori Electric Gooseneck Kettle, is a good alternative. It doesn’t have the same emphasis on form but it has a timer, gooseneck spout, digital temperature selection and so on. It’s a minute or slower to pre-heat a full kettle (less so with less water), and at 140 to 212 degrees, its temperature options aren’t as wide as the EKG’s (105 to 212 degrees). It is, however, anywhere from $50 to $100 less expensive and frequently on sale. If the big price tag of the Stagg EKG gives you cold feet, flag the Bonavita and wait for a deal — we’ve seen it as low as $50.

Review: When I unboxed this product at our office there was audible ahhh-ing. It’s sleek. But the form is only important if the thing works. In short, it does, and it passes with flying colors.

Pre-heating three different amounts of water — one-quarter liter, half a liter and .9 liters (max volume) — it reached temperature faster than the Bonavita did. A function of materials and a more juiced up power system, I imagine. The larger the amount of water, the larger the gap in pre-heating time, though that gap at its biggest was only a bit more than a minute.

The product functions almost entirely from a knob on the front, and it’s for the better. There’s not a dozen buttons and wheels and what have you on it — just plug it in, click the button and turn to whatever the needed temperature is. Once it’s set, the screen flashes briefly, it shows the current temperature and the machine begins to whir. A short time later, the water is ready. Two tiny switches are found on the backside of the base — one to change between Celcius and Fahrenheit, the other to enable temperature-holding mode, which will keep the kettle at whatever level you decide for up to an hour.

When pouring, as noted previously, there is one real drawback, one potential drawback and one mildly annoying detail to keep in mind. Burning the top side of my pointer finger happened a few times until classical conditioning took hold and I no longer wanted to touch the shiny metal bit on the grip. The gooseneck pour is quite slow, even when holding it as steep as possible. This was fine for smaller brew batches, but it may present problems with a Chemex, as saturating the full bed in a consistent manner was a bit trickier than expected (this is remedied by employing a brew method with one or two very, very long pours instead of big pulse pours, but I digress). Finally, why the handle feels so cheap is beyond me — again, I’m assuming the plastic used is ideal for quashing heat before it reaches the hand. All the same, it feels like an odd slip-up in an otherwise considered product.

The count-up timer is also turned on by the knob (please, companies everywhere, give us more knobs) and does what a timer does well. It’s not a huge plus, but proper pour-over brewing requires timing and this alleviates the need to use your microwave timer or something else.