> This seemed like a wild claim (2500 watts for a tea kettle!? As much as a microwave oven in full blast?) so I looked it up. Wow.
Almost all household appliances that heat (and specifically heat food or water) will operate at the limit of what your house can supply.
So that's about 1800 Watt in the US and about 3500 Watt in most of the rest of the world.
It's only natural that you see almost any (heating) appliance cluster around these numbers.
(I'm actually not quite sure where you would see 2500 Watt kettles. Perhaps some are deliberately neutered a bit, so that you don't blow a fuse in case you have anything else on that circuit?
Keep in mind that in the UK, but not in eg France or Germany, every plug also has its own fuse.)
I found it odd that in the US most home brewers don't use electric, but as you say they are limited by the elements they can use.
Here in the UK, my home brew beer set up has a 3000w option - great for boiling 25 litres of water/wort - that said it came with a EU plug with some sort of 'fancy' UK plug convertor. After about 4 years the plug started to get so hot that it melted a socket or two - I found that inside the convertor the connection between the EU plug and the UK was really thin, which was causing it to heat up.
I cut off the end of the cable and rewired it to a heavy duty UK plug - it has been perfect since then - and no longer over heats.
Electric is growing in popularity. Itβs not overly expensive (compared to the cost of the gear, anyway) to get a dedicated 30A or 50A 240V circuit installed; or you can brew next to your washer/dryer, since there is nearly always a 240V circuit available there.
Almost all household appliances that heat (and specifically heat food or water) will operate at the limit of what your house can supply.
So that's about 1800 Watt in the US and about 3500 Watt in most of the rest of the world.
It's only natural that you see almost any (heating) appliance cluster around these numbers.
(I'm actually not quite sure where you would see 2500 Watt kettles. Perhaps some are deliberately neutered a bit, so that you don't blow a fuse in case you have anything else on that circuit?
Keep in mind that in the UK, but not in eg France or Germany, every plug also has its own fuse.)