Fellow Stagg EKG Pro Kettle Review: The Best Pour-Over Kettle You Can Get

The thermostat control is also key for brewing tea. If you look in my tea drawer, you’ll find Japanese sencha, white tea from Yunnan China, black tea from Nepal—all of which demand varying water temperatures for the best results. If brewed too hot, the green tea will be bitter, some high-end Japanese green tea need temps as cool as 160ºF. If brewed too cool the black teas will lack sweetness. Few kettles can hold temperatures with that wide a range.

It’s not just the technological bells and whistles, it’s the form factor of the Fellow kettle too. When it comes to pouring, the Stagg has the best spout design I’ve ever brewed with. The elongated point of its tip means that water won’t dribble when pouring at slower speeds, and the thin, kinked neck provides some resistance to flow, giving the user more control over the pouring speed than traditional curved gooseneck kettles. It also has a weighted handle to offset the water in the kettle itself, providing more balance for precision pouring.

The spout of the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro is shaped to control water better than any other kettle out there.

Jesse Raub

The result is a kettle that offers more control over what you’re brewing than any other gooseneck kettle you’re likely to come across. If I’ve got a slightly darker roast at home I can fine-tune the temperature a few degrees to cut down on smokiness. If the water is draining through the coffee too fast I can easily slow my pour to ensure proper contact time between water and coffee. And thanks to the spout’s flow control, I know that every pour is going to land exactly where I want it to on the coffee bed, ensuring even extraction from all of the grounds.

The Stagg EKG is quick to heat up, too. When I roll out of bed, the first thing I do is fill the kettle and set it to heat. By the time I’ve weighed out my coffee, pulled my favorite mug from the cupboard, and set a filter in my pour-over cone, the water is ready to brew. It may be more work making a pour-over with the Stagg than turning on a drip coffee maker, but from start to finish I have coffee in my mug quicker when I brew by hand. And if I want to save even more time, the kettle has a schedule feature that lets me have water heated and held at temperature before my alarm even goes off in the morning.