The thermometer told on my kettle

We measure to the gram. We time to the second. And we just trust the kettle.

That sentence has been rattling around my head for a couple weeks now, ever since I ran a little experiment. And honestly, I just wanted to see. I just wanted to see how much we can truly, really trust everything that we do in coffee.

Because think about what we already handle. We measure, we time, our pour technique, our recipes, we grind coffee, we do all that good stuff. We know what that's going to do to the coffee, right? But one of the things we don't do at all is check how accurate the kettle actually is.

So I checked.

And it may seem like I'm picking on Fellow here, because I'm really not. I tried this with my Stagg EKG Pro. Top of the line kettle. Love it. Still my favorite kettle. But I wanted to see how accurate the temperatures were.

I used two thermometers. One was a cheap one, about ten, twelve bucks. And another one I have, sixty, seventy dollars, the one I use for cooking, for barbecue and whatnot.

Set the kettle to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, about 300 grams of water inside.

205. Wait a couple seconds. 207.

Filled it up more, to 800, 900 grams, which is the max you're supposed to put in this thing. Set it again. Let it get comfortable. 204, 205. Same type of thing. Still way above the 200 degree realm.

And it got me thinking. Wow. This is one thing we trust blindly. We don't really think about it. We turn the knob. It goes to some temperature. We pour our coffee. And that's it.

Here's what we do when a cup tastes off. We start to think about things to blame. Because it's not our fault, right? We didn't even think about this thing at all. We think about the coffee. We think about the grind size. We think about whatever else we want to blame for our coffee not tasting right. Or that person online who gave us the recipe.

But the thing about it is, this kettle lies to us all the time. And we don't even think to judge it, to question it. We just decided it was going to be right all the time.

This is actually one of the reasons I got a second kettle, the Bonavita. Because I knew the Fellow had mood swings. Temperature swings. I thought the new one might be a little more accurate. And I'm not gonna lie, it's beautiful. The handle is perfect. The look and feel of it is perfect. The spout is the best in the business. It's really a nice premium device.

So I'm a guy with multiple kettles and strong opinions about spouts. I actually retired my Hario just because the Fellow's spout is just as good, and that spout is legendary to me. I am exactly the person who should have stuck a thermometer in one of these things years ago.

And here's the part that might surprise you. When I saw those numbers, I was a little shocked, but I really wasn't mad about the whole situation. It was more that now we can be honest with ourselves when it comes to this stuff. We can be better about engaging with what we're doing with this whole coffee thing.

It's one of the many variables we don't think about. And it's one variable that is extremely important in all of this.

Here's the other thing we don't realize. Whenever somebody gives us a recipe, say 200 degrees, how much water did they actually have in their kettle? What type of water were they using? Does that have an effect?

Trust me, we can geek out and go deeper into the rabbit hole, because we're already there. But the point is, that number they gave you was probably never true on their end either. It's not that recipes are useless. It's that there's more information now, and we can use it to make the best sound decision.

Let me give you a non coffee example, but kind of the same situation.

I barbecue on weekends. I have different smokers, different grills, all that stuff. One of them is an offset smoker. Really big. Does a good job. It has a firebox on the side that stays extremely hot, then a cooking chamber where the heat and smoke flow through, and a chimney to exit out. It's an amazing way to make barbecue.

But when you really look at the device for what it is, it has drawbacks. It has flaws. It has inconsistencies you have to deal with. The front of the cooking chamber runs hotter. So sometimes, depending on the meat, I'll put it there first to get that heat, give me a nice crust. Then later in the cook I may move it back. I may turn it. I may play with the firebox, play with airflow, leave the chimney stack open for constant flow. I might not be explaining it perfectly, but the point is, it's not perfect. And the more you know about the pros and cons, the more you can use them to your advantage.

Same thing with this kettle. Nine times out of ten it's exactly what I want. But it has drawbacks. The difference is, the smoker wears its flaws out in the open. The kettle's flaw was hiding behind a clean little number on a display.

I guess one of the biggest things I'm trying to get you to understand is that the kettle isn't broken.

It's inconsistent.

It lies all the time. Just like anything and everything else we deal with. It truly really does.

But the biggest eye opener is that now we're aware of it. Now we know the disadvantages, and we know what we can do to mitigate them. If you're really trying to see a big swing in temperature in your cup, you probably want to go all the way down. Brew at 190, because you know it's not going to be at 190, it's probably going to sit at 195. Then try 202, 203 on the other end. Small nudges of two or three degrees disappear inside the kettle's own margin of error. Big moves are where the cup starts talking back to you.

That's knowing your gear. That's figuring things out. Same thing with grinders, by the way. Not all grinders are created equal. I have four hand grinders, and they all have their pros and cons. As long as we can maneuver around that, we can still make the best coffee we can with the gear we have.

So I needed this experiment. I didn't know what I was going to get out of it. But I'm not mad at this device. I'm truly not. It's just letting me know that I need to pay attention to it. Whatever I put in, it's not going to give me exactly the output I asked for. So I have to adjust. I have to manipulate it. All that good stuff.

And the other big thing here is that this goes for you too.

No matter what somebody else says to you, it doesn't matter. It's your coffee. I've been saying that a lot lately. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you care about. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter. You do. You care about it.

But you need to pay attention to all the things you're doing. If that person is telling you to do something, question it. If you're wondering why your coffee isn't tasting the way it's tasting, question it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But know why the thing is doing what it's doing. And then manipulate, control, understand, and enjoy your coffee the best way you know how, with the gear you do have.

That's really what I'm saying here.

Is the Fellow still one of the best kettles out there? I think so. There are others right behind it, coming along, doing pretty good. And I love mostly everything about this kettle, even sometimes the finickiness of it. But now, if we care about our grams and we care about our time, we should also care about the temperature and what it's really saying. If it's accurate, great. If it's not, how do we adjust to bring out the best? That's all we're doing.

Just try to question it all. Because if you do, you're going to be in a better place. But remember, it's about the coffee too. Where it was grown, the processing, what that roaster did to it. The kettle is one variable in a long line of them.

So let me know what you think. Have you thought about the trusty old kettle before? Have you questioned it? Have you done a quick little experiment, put a thermometer in there, one or two different ones, to see if it really works? And yeah, probably the thermometers aren't right either. I don't mind. They made me look.

But I guess what I'm saying is, have you questioned the trusty old kettle before? Question your coffee protocol and your devices. It may not matter to you. Or it may be the missing link to being more consistent with enjoying your coffee.

Hit reply and let me know what you found. I read every single one.

Oaks