Thursday, October 17, 2013

Breville BKE820XL Variable-Temperature 1.8-Liter Kettle



New tea snob in the making thanks to this excellent kettle
I am relatively new to the tea scene (my wife and I started drinking Teavana teas about a year ago) and as such I have been searching for a really good kettle. I wanted an electric kettle because of their ease of use as well as the extra features some of the nicer kettles offer. After an exhaustive search I decided upon the Breville SK500XL Ikon Stainless-Steel Electric Kettle based in no small part to the excellent reviews it has received on Amazon and other sites.

I went to a few stores to examine it in person and compare it to about ten other electric kettles that the different stores carried but nothing seemed to come close to the design and quality of the Breville. So after finally making my decision, it was simply a matter of time before I made my purchase. I am very glad I waited as within 2 weeks this new Breville kettle was released. While still substantially costlier than the SK500XL, the...

The viewing window and lid are polycarbonate
First, this kettle is gorgeous! I bought it for it's beauty and easy to use variable temperature and the fact it had a viewing window to easily see how much water was inside. Before I used it, I emailed Breville to find out what type of plastic the viewing window was made from. The response I received was a defensive email about how polycarbonate and BPA are safe for food contact and this kettle is safe. I've been reading the research on BPA and polycarbonate for years, so they didn't share anything new with me. I would have preferred their response to simply state "polycarbonate" and then offer to provide me with more information if I had any concerns.

Regardless, they weren't going to change my mind. I don't feel comfortable with polycarbonate around my boiling (or close to boiling) water and in this day and age where BPA is a huge uproar, I am super surprised that Breville came out with a brand new kettle containing polycarbonate. I would have loved to see this kettle...

Can't recommend
I got this kettle to brew the perfect cup of coffee and I loved it for the first 6 months. Then things started going south. The kettle intermittently does not shutoff when it reaches the proper temp of 200F. Instead it continues to heat to a boil and will boil itself dry unless turned off. Now the audible alarm has stopped working. I can't trust the thermostat and the kettle shouldn't be left unattended - the 2 main reasons for purchasing it!

I feel that for what this kettle costs it should have lasted a lot longer. If I had written this review when I first got this kettle I would have given it 5 stars, but experiencing such failure in so short a period of time I can only give it 1 star. I wonder how many of the 5 star reviews were posted right out of the box.

I really got spoiled when this kettle as working properly. I'm on a quest now to find a reliable replacement.

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