I currently use a cheap water kettle for boiling my water.

I understand that water temps are important, but it seems like all the temperature-controlled kettles that cost <$70 on Amazon have mixed to bad reviews.

Is there any way to still get good temp management without a temperature-controlled kettle?

Why not just stick a cheap meat thermometer into the kettle?

If you're asking about keep temperatures consistent across a single brew, you can just pulse the kettle on and off while reading the temperature on the thermometer constant

Use the microwave.
If you heat a consistent amount of water in the same vessel you can figure out what times give you what temperature.
I just memorized the times I needed, but you could make a chart.

I have a temp controlled kettle but have never used anything other than boiling point. Unless you are brewing a dark roast it isnt needed?

You can also boil a set amount of water and then wait 10,15,30s etc to achieve lower brew temps.

Leopoldo95 wrote:... it seems like all the temperature-controlled kettles that cost <$70 on Amazon have mixed to bad reviews.

I think you're wrong about this. Many of the reasonably-priced gooseneck electric kettles with variable temperature control on Amazon have excellent reviews. For example, the Intasting kettle is currently priced at $60-70 and rated 4.7 stars. I've been using one on a daily basis for almost a year, and recommend it without reservation.

fjen wrote:Why not just stick a cheap meat thermometer into the kettle?

This is what I did prior to getting my EKG. Had a cheap dial thermometer, calibrated it and then drilled a small hole in the lid of the kettle. It worked great, and the analog dial thermometer is plenty fast to keep up with the rising water temps.

Most good manual pouring kettles have a thermometer on top. I put the kettle on the stove with a bit of water and boil water in my kettle and add it to the kettle on the stove. This saves me a lot of time in heating the water and after adding it to the kettle it's most of the time around 90C so I can then turn off the stove when I'm at the desired temperature.

I've thought about making a PID controller with a probe and 120V relay controlled by a little microprocessor, arduino kind of thing. It would be a pretty straightforward project but I've wondered if you can just buy something like that. You know, you plug it in, you plug your kettle into the controller, stick the probe into the kettle through the top or whatever, and the device switches the kettle on/off to keep the water at the right temperature. I used to have a beer fridge that I controlled like that with a cheap device from the hardware store. But it wasn't a PID and wouldn't have worked for hot water temperatures.

Do these devices exist and at a reasonable price?

Our electric water kettle is mostly glass, and has preprogrammed temp buttons for various tea - green tea, black tea, etc with the numeric temperature on the button. Great for those of us who know next to nothing about tea.

jpender wrote:I've thought about making a PID controller with a probe and 120V relay controlled by a little microprocessor, arduino kind of thing. It would be a pretty straightforward project but I've wondered if you can just buy something like that. You know, you plug it in, you plug your kettle into the controller, stick the probe into the kettle through the top or whatever, and the device switches the kettle on/off to keep the water at the right temperature. I used to have a beer fridge that I controlled like that with a cheap device from the hardware store. But it wasn't a PID and wouldn't have worked for hot water temperatures.

Do these devices exist and at a reasonable price?

Here's one example, you could probably find something like this cheaper elsewhere ir build your own.

https://www.auberins.com/index.php?main ... cts_id=110

This might be better if you only need 10 amps https://www.amazon.com/WILLHI-WH1436A-T ... ref=sr_1_3