They could always combine the stainless kettle with a stainless thermos
flask. How the latter manage to keep things warm so effectively is a
mystery
to me!

On the kettle theme, having just used around a pound of citric acid to get
all the clinker out of our stainless kettle (which boils v quickly -
Phillips), I wonder about those little bundles of wire I used to see in old
ladies kettles, that somehow stop the furring up: how do they work, and what
are they made of? (This is a bigger problem than it used to be, since we
started taking note of the water levels in order not to waste energy: the
result is a thick ring of clinker at the 'two cups' level! The clinker also
blocks up the level tube entrance which foolishly happens to be at about the
same level!)

S


"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
" writes:
Why aren't kettles highly insulated?

I was distracted by the phone this morning and kettle had cooled a bit
before I poured my cuppa.

Made me think how convenient and energy efficient kettles would be if
they could keep the water in them near boiling for some time.

I have a Siemens kettle which is perhaps 6 years old, and is
insulated. Outside is brushed stainless steel, inside is plastic
except for the flat bottomed element. One issue with an insulated
kettle is you can't quickly tell if it's already boiled, or if
you forgot to switch it on in the first place.

It was designed by Porsche -- he might be able to design cars,
but as with many designers, he completely failed to design a
spout which can pour properly. Otherwise, it works fine.

We have a kettle at work which has a "keep hot" switch on it,
which maintains the temperature just below boiling when the
boil switch is off. It's a large industrial thing though,
with a hopelessly underpowered element for its size.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]