Hi

Like recently repurchased this kettle again, after trying a variety of alternatives such as Hario, Bonavita PID, Bonavita stovetop and Chemex, which I all found lacking in significant ways.

I really like the quality of the Kalita and the pour control it offers me.

For those who have experience with the Kalita, is it better used as a stovetop kettle or Pourover kettle? By pourover, I mean boiling the water in another kettle and transferring it to the Kalita.

Kalita-USA says it is safe to use the kettle on a gas range, but with a small flame. I have found it necessary, to use a very tiny flame and keep it 70 % full. Otherwise I get spillage from the spout. This might mean that I am not left with enough for my chemex brew if I need in excess if 700g of water. Also on a very small flame it takes about 10-12 minutes. I also might not have enough boiling water to pre/rinse the chemex. I could do it in two passes, but that would further extend the time.

Some have suggested the Kalita is better used as a Pourover kettle, where the water is boiled in another kettle and transferred to the Kalita. This would allow enough water to be boiled to also preheat my Chemex. However I am worried about heat loss when transferring the water. In reading user questions and reviews on Amazon, there does not seem to be any unanimity.

Over the years, for no a-priori reason, I have been reluctant to "boil and transfer". However I wondering if the Kalita wave kettle is better suited to that method. Any thoughts?

Jay

How are these kettles used in a professional setting?

As far as I know, baristas transfer pre-heated water to a gooseneck kettle, and use that kettle for pouring only. To avoid heat loss, they pre-heat the gooseneck kettle before transferring the brew water.

Thanks for the observation

In shops, i have seen water transferred to a pouring kettle from a water tower, but did not observe the pouring kettle being preheated. At home, I do not have a water heating system. Just a four burner gas range.

Thanks again.

Jay

Pour off of boiling and you should be alright. The pour won't drop your water temp more than 6 or 7 degrees. If you need your water at 205/206, then maybe preheat would do you better. In my experience the pour never dropped the temp in the pourover lower than 202.

While I don't use the Kalita Wave kettle, I much prefer heating my water directly in my goose neck kettle to avoid the heat loss. I used to pour boiling water into the preheated kettle, but this often lead to low slurry temperatures and underextracted brews. I got better results once I started directly boiling the water in the kettle.

Go ahead and try to pour boiling water in the kettle and see if it works for you. I would recommend pouring a small amount of boiling water into the kettle and using this water to rinse your filter and preheat your brewing device. Dump any remaining water and fill it up completely with more boiling water for brewing. This seems to be an efficient way of preheating the kettle before brewing that I learned from watching a few baristas.

Interesting

One of the staff members at Kalita USA was also concerned about heat loss as a possibility.

Jay

Portable induction cooktops are cheap nowadays too

We are dealing with a NYC apartment kitchen which is not large. I doubt if I would have room for a cooktop. For better or worse, it's the gas range.

Jay

I use my wave kettle daily with a small induction top. I don't think pulling off a hot tap and then pouring from the kettle would keep my water hot enough. Even if I did have a tap, I'd bring it back to the boil on the induction top.

Amazing little kettle, btw.

Best as pourover.. for stove top, the handle gets invariably too hot to handle.