Andy Hall wrote:

But was that the material or the power rating? It seems a bit
surprising that stainless steel can radiate/convect *that* much heat to
make much of a difference with a 2-3kW heat source.

This puzzled me at the time. The stainless kettle was a Morphy Richards
3.1kW, which replaced a (much faster) 3kW Kenwood.

To start with I thought it might be thermal mass, but raising 300 grams
of stainless steel from 20C to 80C takes about 9kJ, which the element
can do in 3 seconds, so that's not the issue. I therefore assumed that
it must be convective losses from the surface.


--
Grunff