Yep. Just like the video.

A lot of these guys are steaming on HX machines with a lot more power than the Gaggia, so a lot of their advice has to be modified to work on a Gaggia.

Here's what I do:

- stand facing the side of the machine.
- put the wand right in the middle as deep as you like.
- turn on the steam.
- tilt the pitcher 30-45 degrees and position the wand about 1" from the side.
- get the milk spinning (whirlpool is best if you can do it)
- surf the tip so that you get just a bit of the ripping sound.
- continue like this until the pitcher just starts to feel warm, then immerse the tip and keep the milk spinning.
- stop when the pitcher gets too hot to hold.

Practice with the soap trick in the video I linked.

Hope this helps. If I can do it with a 32oz pitcher, you can do it with a more reasonable size.

Good Luck.

Making microfoam, when you dont know, can be very hard.

But its honestly incredibly easy. If I can teach my Father to do it, in one try, TRUST ME, anyone can do it.(And he was taught on the Gaggia, not the Vivaldi)


The tip does seem pretty short, and well, it IS. But its workable, and you can make latte art capable microfoam no problem.

First thing you need to do, is temp surf the boiler so you have full steam power, for the entire time you are steaming. If you're not temp surfing the boiler, you'll never get the results you want.

You'll need to angle the pitcher so you can use the small "nub" on the gaggia, but angling the pitcher will get the milk to spin around the pitcher, which is want you want. The first part of making microfoam, is called stretching. To stretch, you need to inject air into the milk, without making huge bubbles. To do this, you get the milk spinning, and find the spot where the steam wand is barely under the milk, the power of the steam coming out of the wand, "pushes" the milk away from it, so small amounts of air enter the milk.

Once you are done stretching, you dip the wand a bit deeper, so no more air can be injected, and you are only heating the milk, while its spinning around the pitcher.

Check out this article Coffeegeek's Milk Frothing Guide, as it is a great guide to frothing milk. Has more info then any guide Ive ever seen, and not only shows you how to make real microfoam, but also shows you how BAD milk froth is made, AND, why you dont want to do that.

JmanEspresso wrote:First thing you need to do, is temp surf the boiler so you have full steam power, for the entire time you are steaming. If you're not temp surfing the boiler, you'll never get the results you want.

Yes, this is especially important for large quantities of milk. I don't find it necessary for my usual 8-10 oz.

Also, I forgot to mention, be sure to purge the condensation from the wand before you start, and purge the milk and wipe down the wand when you're done.

With this machine, does temp surfing basically mean waiting till the right time between cycles to start either brewing or steaming? With what I have read about temperature surfing, I get why you do it, but not the details of how.

And thanks- those details about using the wand helped.

Glad you're making progress.

The way I temp surf for steaming on the Gaggia is as follows:

- Hit steam button, and wait until ready light comes on.
- Open the steam valve and let steam out in short, 3 second bursts, until the ready light goes off.
- Wait for ready light to come back on, and steam! You'll notice you have much more steam power than you would if you steamed after the first ready light.

Hope that helps.