World’s Greatest Mug Warmer
Like many of you out there, I enjoy a hot beverage close at hand when I’m working on the computer. (Specifically, I like a stainless steel carafe of ginger tea brewing, but that detail isn’t too important.)
I’ve spent a bit of time shopping around for an alternative to the 1960s Salton “Hotray” that I had been using. It was big enough to fit my carafe and mug together, and it worked great, but I felt bad burning up that much juice for hours on end when a smaller, round hot plate of less than half the surface area would have been just fine.
So, first off, I tried a normal mug warmer (Rival brand) which plugs into the wall. I didn’t even bother with the USB powered ones, which run from 20 to 30 watts, hardly enough power to read by. The ordinary mug warmers go from 30 to 60 watts, depending on the model, but I couldn’t get any decent heat out of even the top of that range.
Next, I bought a Bunn decanter warmer from Amazon, 85 watts, which has great reviews. Although it had a bigger footprint than I would have preferred, I was excited to get a product that was reported to be effective. Unfortunately, even after 45 minutes, it only seemed to achieve a temperature just short of potability (which surprisingly enough, turns out to be the #1 most disgusting temperature). Actual consumption was average 60 watts. It also gave off a terrible burning plastic stink that made me ill. So back it went.
I was about to give up and return to my Hotray (120 watts) when I stumbled across this blog entry relating to Asian travel cookers. The Sanyo Multivolt Travel Cooker RN-38 NF (purportedly “easy to tourists in hotel rooms” and “useful to tired to eat supper and when making local and rice or noodles”) has plenty of juice (runs at 360 watts on US current) but lacks a knob to control the temp. It’s also pricey and hard to find in the US, and if you look at the measurements, it’s not as small as the cute picture would suggest. The square burner is 5 inches across (128 mm) and it weighs 1050 grams. I don’t know why anybody would think it was appropriate for light travel. I didn’t buy one.
Finally, I stumbled upon the World’s Greatest Mug Warmer on an eBay hot plate search. The Thermolyne HP2305B, also referenced in places as simply the 2300 series, is a 3.5 inch diameter laboratory burner with a knob and a max draw of 325 watts. In a flat-bottomed metal container, I can achieve boiling at the halfway mark. In a stoneware mug which has very poor contact from the bottom of the mug to the hot plate, I can do it at full power.
That pic is almost life size!
This thing weighs about a pound and a half (~700 grams), including the long, heavy duty power cord, which incidentally makes it a nice choice for travel cooking (though not outside 120V regions). I bought mine lightly used on eBay for $65.
For safety, I have it plugged into a lighted rocker switch, so I won’t have to worry about the knob getting bumped when it’s supposed to be off.
It’s tiny, it’s hot, it’s adjustable, and it’s rockin’ that Bunsen Honeydew style. It’s the World’s Greatest Mug Warmer.
