A Kettle with Connections: Fellow Products Introduces the Stagg EKG+

The Stagg EKG. All images courtesy of Fellow Products.

There’s only one stag pulling Santa’s sleigh over Fellow Products‘ chimney this holiday season: The Stagg EKG, an electrified and smartened-up evolution of the original Stagg Kettle. The San Francisco-based manual coffee brewing equipment startup launched a Kickstarter campaign last week to fund manufacturing of the EKG, and its following of true believers sent the product well north of its $100,000 goal in less than a day.

Building upon the thoughtful design of the original Stagg Kettle, the EKG retains the counterweighted handle, dripless spout and overall dapper sleekness, while adding a concealed heating element and an AC-powered base with a subtle digital temperature readout capable of both Celsius and Fahrenheit. Users adjust the temperature with a knob on the base, as opposed to buttons or a screen. A “hold” mode will maintain a designated temperature for up to 30 minutes.

The smarts kick in on the Stagg EKG+, with Bluetooth capability built into the base through which it communicates with phones by way of a new app currently in public beta testing, called Brewbar. Through the app, a phone can turn the Stagg EKG on and off, manually or by timer, set the temperature and put it in “hold” mode as well. The same app also communicates with Acaia scales and Baratza Sette grinders, opening a world of brew-logging potential.

“The Brewbar app itself is Acaia’s baby,” Fellow Products brand manager Hanna McPhee told Daily Coffee News. McPhee said that the app launched for industry feedback about a week and a half ago, for tablets only but will soon be available for the iPhone.

Stagg EKG with an Acaia Pearl scale and a Baratza Sette grinder.

The “Big Kahuna Setup” as McPhee called it would involve an EKG, a Sette, a brew stand on top of an Acaia Pearl scale and a mug on top of an Acaia Lunar scale, all feeding data into the Brewbar app. Users can then record the grind setting and precise dose, the temperature of water at the start of pouring, the changing weight of the brewer, the changing weight of the mug, the duration of the pour, and then the temperature of water when the kettle is returned to the base. From this data, the app can calculate the flow of water from the kettle to the coffee, through the coffee to the cup, the ratio of water to coffee, the grind, and an approximate rate of brew-water-temperature decline, and store it all for reference later.

“This is really great, because then a café owner, or even as a coffee nerd just figuring out how to brew better, you can understand where there are inconsistencies,” said McPhee. “It locks down every possible variable that goes into brewing coffee.”

At press time there’s over seven weeks remaining on the crowdfunding campaign, after which McPhee said the company will not waste time in pursuing their next project, which will again dabble further into the realm of manual pourover brewing. As for this one, Fellow aspires for a September 2017 delivery of the Stagg EKG to backers, with the EKG+ following one month later.