annecal's Full Review: Breville SK500XL Ikon™ Cordless Electric Kettle
I needed to replace my Russel Hobbs kettle and after looking around a bit, I decided on this one. I have several Breville items and have been happy with them. This one has been something of a mixed bag, though, and here is why.
The Look
The kettle looks great. It's nice and sleek, in stainless steel, and has a handy viewing window, in case you want to check and see how much water is in the thing. Fine. When you turn the unit on, the little window lights up in blue. Very swanky. Just fine. It sits on a base, and the cord fits under it nicely. It doesn't take up too much space and looks nice on the counter, amid the rest of my stainless appliances.
The Functionality
The kettle, as I mentioned before, sits nicely on it's base. It is easy to turn on and off, and will shut itself off with a soft "ding" when the water has come to a boil. It boils water reasonably quickly, and has a filter that can be removed, that slots into the space leading to the spout. If, say, a spider somehow found its way into the kettle, it would not end up in your tea. This has happened to my sister in law a couple of times!
It's easy to grip, easy to fill, with a button that opens the top, and it closes easily, as well.
All in all, it is perfectly designed and works as it should.
So what's the problem?
It STINKS! Literally stinks. There was a strong plasticy- chemically smell to it. The manual says to boil water before you use it and discard, and I did this, twice. But still I had to spit out the drink I made, because it tasted AWFUL.
I had a look here and found nothing, then had a look at Amazon.com's reviews, and there it was... a lot of people had this problem.
I then embarked on two weeks or so of constantly boiling a half vinegar/half water mixture 5 or so times, discarding, then boiling and discarding 5 batches of plain water, then boiling and discarding baking soda and water... over, and over and over again, I repeated this sequence. And still, the smell and taste was there.
It's now about 3 weeks in, and the taste, though still slightly there is now palatable, and fading.
But I have never encountered anything quite like this. Really- the amount of work I put into getting rid of this taste was just insane, and it's still there, though slight.
So unless you have the time to put into getting the horrid taste and smell out of this unit, I'd shop around for another one.
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