Black & Decker® JKC930C Electric Cordless Kettle, showing the kettle unit and stand. separated.
We’ve enjoyed hot chocolate and black tea for over five decades, and so, have often kept electric kettles like the Black & Decker electric kettle in the kitchen for rapid water boiling for these hot drinks. This water kettle a few minutes faster than stove top tea kettles. But we do miss the stove top kettle whistle when it’s ready.
The JKC930C kettle is technically not cordless. Why? There is a cord that you connect to a fifteen amp outlet. It’s attached to the base stand. That stand supplies power to the heater inside the kettle via mating rings. The water pot itself lifts off of the stand for easy filling, pouring, and cleaning. So, while handling, the kettle part is not powered.
Indeed, the fact that this kettle has no attached cord makes for much easier filling and safer hot water pouring. This is a hefty kettle that looks quite long lasting. Nothing looks cheap about this cordless yet electric teapot. It has an attractive mirror finish and large, easy to read water fill gauges, both metric and English.
Heats 1.7 liters of water in approximately eight minutes here in Altoona, PA. It may boil more in higher altitude locations like Denver.
Even when the water is boiling you hear just a loud whisper. The on-off switch, while loud enough to alert you when water boiling has occurred, is not needlessly noisy. You’ll indeed hear the boiling when it occurs. But that sound is low in volume; quieter than the stove top kettles mentioned above.
The stand that supplies power to the kettle itself has anti-skid feet. These stop the kettle from sliding, even when full. These also provide sound isolation from the counter. This likely helps keep the kettle quiet.
Has an attached black plastic lid with a metal stainless steel shell. The lid matches the rest of the unit. It springs open for easy filling. Then it latches closed to contain hot liquids while pouring.
The mid-sized mouth supports quick filling and cleaning with little slop and spill. But the mouth could be a little larger for the best hand cleaning inside.
A metric (Liters) fill gauge window is to the left of the kettle’s carrying handle. An English (Ounces) gauge appears to the right. These gauges also act as a window, letting you see the water while filling, and as it boils. Both are large enough to read from a distance. But we wish they would both light up while the kettle heat is ON.
A blue LED-lit power light clearly indicates whether the kettle is heating. It comes on while heating is in progress. This lamp, unlike other kettles we’ve reviewed, is not part of the start lever. Rather, it shines out a separate opening close by.
Heats 1.7 liters of cold water to a rolling boil in less than eight minutes. Water is well-heated throughout. So this kettle is better than a microwave oven for fast water heating.
This heated kettle automatically shuts off soon after the water inside boils. 1.7 liters of cold water reaches full boil in less than five minutes.
The supporting stand remains cool to the touch. Note that this stand is not a heating element. They instead, sealed the heaters inside the bottom of the kettle itself.
The base provides a channel underneath for power cord storage. Just wrap the cord up in this circular channel when packing, or when the full cord length is not required.
Has the “in” look of a mirrored stainless steel finish on all exterior metal parts. They made the handle out of with black plastic. This goes well with the metal and enhances beauty of the metal surfaces around it.
With the plastic handle, there is little chance of electric shock or too-hot handling from this appliance. The handle remains cool to the touch during water heating.
The handle provides great balance. So carting this kettle from its stand to your teacup is easy. Pouring is a breeze as well, even when full.
At nearly $22, the price was well within our budget. Indeed, other brands of electric kettles can cost more than three times this.
You must register this product to qualify. For more details, see the instruction guide. For service, call the Black & Decker® Home customer care line at: 1-800-231-9786.
The lid and sides, with that mirror shine, is a bit too easy to scratch. A harder exterior here would help solve this issue.
Occasionally, this cordless electric kettle clicks and snaps, even hours after last use. This is likely the auto shut-off system inside, cooling down. They could quiet this with a fully electronic thermostat system in future models. But with that said, this kettle makes no more noise than the others we’ve looked at.
We wish this kettle held a full two liters instead of the 1.7 liters. But you can put 2 liters of water in without much ill effect. Yet for max safety, we suggest that you not fill this kettle past the MAX line.
It would be nice if the power light in the power lever was brighter. Why? Because sometimes in a brightly lit kitchen, we can’t tell if the pot is still in-cycle just by looking; especially given how quietly the “done switch” operates when compared with other bustling kitchen sounds.
As mentioned above, the lid opening is plenty large enough for filling with a kitchen sprayer hose from the tap. But we cannot get our hand inside this kettle with a dish cloth to clean it. So, we just do the following.
Even this routine does not take away stubborn limes scale and other hard water deposits. But it does remove loose debris. Still, we could clean it better if the mouth was an inch or so larger across. Nothing beats getting a hand inside.
Some water boiler kettles have lighted fill gauges. These make reading faster while heating. Thus, you get more accurate filling, without wasting as much water due to overfilling. Lighted water level readouts would boost this electric kettle to the best rating in our view.
See pic below. It looks more like a stick than a thumb lever. It’s easily tripped off once started. Finally, this switch just seems too “dainty” for the otherwise good build of this water boiler.
In total, we’re quite pleased with this Black and Decker® electric water kettle, model JKC930C. It heats water faster than a microwave oven or stove top kettle. It is fairly easy to clean, and quite affordable. So, we recommend the JKC930C to anyone needing quick hot water. It’s handy for tea, hot chocolate, soups, bouillon, and other hot drinks. We rate this kettle thus, at 96 out of 100.
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