Fellow Stagg EKG Pro Review: Buy It for the Pour, Not the Screen

The useful features are the ones you repeat

Borough Kitchen's page lists a 0.9-litre capacity, a hold button and selectable temperature. The Amazon.co.uk listing adds a brew stopwatch, scheduling and preset guide temperatures for different coffee styles and tea. These are retailer-published specifications, not measurements, and the pages disagree on the exact range, so no figure is quoted here.

Temperature selection and hold are the features that carry the price; the spout comes next. A screen earns nothing if you never change what is on it. Someone who reheats water three times a morning is buying back a small piece of attention each day, which is a better reason than the display.

A coffee tool does not have to be your only kettle

The listings describe a precision gooseneck for a slow, controlled pour. Slow is the point when you are wetting a coffee bed. Slow is a nuisance when the job is filling a teapot. Count which of those two your week is mostly made of.

Capacity has to cover rinse water as well as the drink, and two people brewing separately need more than the cup count suggests. If the Stagg means keeping a second kettle for everything else, the counter space (28.2 x 19.6 cm footprint, 17.2 cm high, per Borough Kitchen) and the second descaling routine belong in the price.

Do not pay for a connected feature you have imagined

The EKG Updater app handles firmware updates; Fellow's own FAQ says the app cannot control the kettle or its settings, and that skipping it does not reduce the kettle's usefulness. Anyone expecting to start heating from a phone should check that before ordering.

Finer control does not guarantee better coffee either. Repeatability tells you what changed between two cups. It does not pick the beans, write the recipe, or decide whether you liked the result.

The buying rule: establish the habit first

Starting from scratch, brew on an inexpensive dripper such as the £7.95 Hario V60 with whatever kettle the kitchen already has, and keep notes for a couple of weeks. Buy the dedicated kettle when pouring or water temperature is the thing actually holding the cup back. In that order, a £165 appliance never becomes an expensive bet on a hobby you turn out not to have.

If the habit is established, check the plug and the warranty before ordering. Borough Kitchen sells it fitted with a UK plug (220-240 V); the Amazon.co.uk page names no plug, voltage or warranty. Fellow's own warranty page covers purchases made and used in the United States, U.S. territories or Canada and does not mention the UK, so ask the seller what cover a UK order carries. Amazon lists free returns within 30 days.

The verdict is conditional: a defensible daily upgrade for someone who brews by hand, an unnecessary expense in most other kitchens. Measured temperature drift or awkward handling in a real trial would change it, whatever the feature list says.