The Ember can read as empty or stop heating for a few reasons:
Pouring in cooler liquids. To prevent false empty detection, we always recommend pouring in liquids that are hotter than your set temperature. The Ember is searching for a drastic temperature change, and when cooler liquids are poured in, the sensors may be unable to detect the liquid and will read as empty or have difficulty heating as a result.
I am pouring in hotter liquids, and my Ember is still reading as empty, what next?
Things that could cause the Ember to read as empty even if the liquids poured in are hotter than the set temp:
- Honey! Honey can sink to the bottom of the Ember and cover the Ember's heaters. As a result, the Ember will be unable to detect the temperature of the liquid and read as empty. Don't worry, you can still add honey to your tea! We simply recommend stirring the beverage occasionally to ensure any honey hasn't sunk to the bottom of the beverage.
- Teabag left in mug/Loose Leaf Tea. We recommend to remove the tea bag once steeped to ensure that the mug can get an accurate reading. Additionally, we recommend putting loose leaf tea in a steeper so that the leaves don’t cover the sensors.
- Cold Cream/Milk. The addition of cold cream or milk can quickly drop the temperature of the liquid in the Ember. In this case, we recommend slowly stirring in the cold cream to ensure the Ember is able to accurately read the temperature of the entire beverage.
- Steamed/Frothed Milk. We have seen some cases where the Ember reads as empty when there is foamed/frothed milk in the beverage. This is simply due to the air in the foamed milk that causes the Ember to have trouble getting an accurate temperature read. If you don't mind, please try stirring the foamed milk in your latte so the Ember can accurately read the temperature.
Still reading as empty? Let's try a reset!