Hi,

When I had Silvia I got used to the single-hole tip on the steam wand. Now that I have a Duetto I can't seem to get the hang of the two-hole tips that came with the machine. It's probably my incompetence but it seems way too easy to generate bubbles compared to when I used a single hole tip.

Does anyone have any suggestions on technique or alternate tips?

thanks in advance
david

WholeLatteLove sells the Expobar Single Hole Steam Tip, which I used on my Anita for a little while. I would think it would fit the duetto, and probably every other prosumer machine without a no-burn wand.

hi david,

i came off of a silvia and now have a duetto. for me, the 1-hole duetto tip doesn't have great velocity, but I instead prefer to plug one hole of the 2-hole tip and use that. using the 2-hole tip full-blast was too much power for steaming the 4-5 oz of milk that i tend to work with.

andrew

Hi Jman and Andrew, thanks for the replies.

I realized later I should have added more information, such as using 4-5 oz whole milk in a 12 oz pitcher and using the tip with the smaller holes. I did try the plug-one-hole method soon after I got the machine and I did have a lot more control.

The day after I posted this I did more searching/reading and found topics that I'd read about before but had forgotten about. In particular, there was something that cafeIKE wrote that struck me again, which is if the designers of the machine knew what they were doing then maybe I just need to understand how to use the tip properly. I probably went back to the two-hole tip after reading that. Chris from Chris's Coffee also sent me a reply which was helpful.

I'm still experimenting but I believe I'm making very good progress. For me the trick seems to be to get the correct orientation of the two holes relative to the milk and pitcher. I can now consistently get the milk to whirlpool for the entire time and this morning had some very good texture and almost no bubbles; this was the most latte-art consistent foam I've gotten to date.

I'll keep working with the existing tips and maybe post a final report once I think I have it down.

d

I owned an Alex Duetto II for about three months. It was my first machine and there were learning curve issues with it. I watched every YouTube video I could find and read everything on steaming milk that I could find on the net. I purchased three additional tips and finally resorted back to the one that came on the no burn wand. In retrospect there was a combination of issues relating to steaming with the Duetto but first was probably my technique and possibly there not being enough steam power using the reservoir tank. I don't know if you are plumbed in or not but I suspect you will see a lot more steam power once you are. I do know that the first time that I steamed with the machine that I replaced the Duetto with the milk came out thick and I have not had any issues since.

I would doubt that your steaming issue is related to your tip. I do believe if I had an Espro Toroid pitcher and followed the instructions using it that steaming would not have been an issue. The Toroid creates the correct turbulence for froth.

sdavidp wrote:
The day after I posted this I did more searching/reading and found topics that I'd read about before but had forgotten about. In particular, there was something that cafeIKE wrote that struck me again, which is if the designers of the machine knew what they were doing then maybe I just need to understand how to use the tip properly. I probably went back to the two-hole tip after reading that. Chris from Chris's Coffee also sent me a reply which was helpful.

I'll keep working with the existing tips and maybe post a final report once I think I have it down.

d

What did you find and what suggestion did Chris offer? I have the no-burn wand and use the two-hole with the back hole plugged. Takes a little longer but has been the best solution I have found so far.

Im sorry, but I doubt that being plumbed or using the reservoir has anything to do with steaming power.

Water level in the boiler, temp/pressure of the boiler, the number of holes on the tip, yes.. these all affect steam's velocity, but how water is fed to the machine, should make no difference whatsoever.

IMO, 2hole tips i find to be the toughest. Now, a 4hole tip(with the steam power to back it up), THATS a steam tip. Couldn't be easier to make wonderful microfoam with a 4hole tip. The duetto surely would be able to handle a 4hole tip, and I know if I owned one, that would be my preference. YMMV.

IMO, 2hole tips i find to be the toughest. Now, a 4hole tip(with the steam power to back it up), THATS a steam tip. Couldn't be easier to make wonderful microfoam with a 4hole tip. The duetto surely would be able to handle a 4hole tip, and I know if I owned one, that would be my preference. YMMV.

I couldn't agree more. Switching from the stock two-hole tip to a four hole wand with small holes made a huge difference for me with my Anita. I'm using the steam arm designed for La Spaziale machines, and it works great. Plenty of power for making a whirlpool, but it doesn't make big bubbles, only silky smooth microfoam.

http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/home/repairpartssection3/s5steamarm

Also, Chris now offers the same tip size and pattern for no-burn arms, which seems like a great upgrade for anyone having trouble getting microfoam with the stock two-hole tip on their Vetrano, Andreja, Giotto, Brewtus, etc.

http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/home/repairpartssection3/noburnfourholetip

Hi all, thanks for the great replies. I just typed up this post and it turned out quite long. I seems that as I get older I more often go into "story-telling" mode. Please bear with me.

After every post I realize I forgot another variable or two that are important to mention. Aside from the obvious things like the placement of tip in pitcher, I think these are relevant to mention:

• @4 oz of whole milk in 12 oz pitcher
• burn-me steam wand
• steam tip: 2 small holes
• steam tip: 2 large holes
• steam boiler temperature: 255 (max)

Initially I had the steam boiler temperature set at 250 but for the last four or five attempts I've kept the temperature at 255, which I think is the maximum the PID will let you set it to. This way I can purge the wand all I want and still have a lot of steam/pressure. It seems that the boiler gets back up to temp really quickly too, which helps. Also, this should elminate the possibility of not enough pressure being the problem. Incidentally, I haven't noticed a lack of steam power on the Duetto, not when steaming 4-5 oz of milk anyway. There's more than enough to get the job done.

At some point I realized that when using the 2-hole tips the orientation of the holes in the milk relative to the pitcher may be important. (Ok, maybe that's a "Well DUH" statement! ) For me, when I have the holes in a (roughly) vertical orientation and the tip on the side of the pitcher I can get an excellent whirlpool everytime. You can get this orientation easily by just swinging the steam arm just off to the side of the machine.

Chris's advice was to skip the stretch part of steaming and keep the tip a half to three quarters of an inch into the milk from the start to the end.

Using these two ideas I practiced using the soap-water trick until I consistently got a whirlpool; I was able to do it three times in a row so then I tried it with milk.

Using the tip with the small holes I followed Chris's advice and had a great whirlpool going the whole time and stopped it when the pitcher felt too hot. I ended up with steamed milk, but no foam whatsoever: it was the least foam I'd ever gotten. I was still smiling though: it was the best whirlpool I'd ever done!

However, just because we think we're doing something doesn't necessarily mean we really are, so I wasn't going to give up on Chris's advice yet. Besides, one should extend the benefit of the doubt to those with a lot more experience. So the next time I tried the same thing, orienting the holes and tip the same way, but with the larger holed tip. Awesome whirlpool the entire time but the milk got hot very quickly. I did a little foam though.

I decided to go back to the tip with the small holes for this quantity of milk.

The next session I tried to raise the tip a little and did end up doing some stretching. I got some bubbles but nowhere near as big as I had in the past. However, I stopped the stretching early and the whirlpool gobbled them up right away. Foam was pretty good, but probably too thick for latte art.

Last night I tried again; I don't remember if there was any accidental stretching but if there was it was minimal, then textured the rest of the time. I stopped earlier than I have in the past and there was a decent amount of foam, and when I swirled the milk there was a definite "wet paint" look.

This morning was the best yet. I kept the tip just slightly below the surface and textured the entire time. No problem whatsoever with foam, in fact I wonder if it was in between latte and cappa consistency. I easily could have gone a bit longer and had even more foam.

So far the best results have been with the tip close to the right edge of the pitcher with the tip just below the surface, texturing the whole time. I'll keep experimenting with the orientation of the pitcher and when to stop. In these last two attempts I didn't have the pitcher tilted right as much as I had previously.

Older posts talk about replacing the steam arm in order to use a particular 4-hole tip but Chris has the Pasquini 4-hole tip available which looks like it will fit and it's only $14, if anyone's interested.

Thanks to everyone for your comments/suggestions!
d

It's been almost a month since my last post so I thought I'd give an update.

There is definitely no shortage of steam power with the Duetto II, though I haven't tried it with more than 6oz of milk. The machine comes back up to temp very quickly so I suspect it will do just fine.

This past week I switched my technique a little: I've moved the pitcher to my left hand and moved the tip to the left side of the pitcher. I've been wanting to do this for a while but never bothered; it makes everything a lot easier.

I'm still doing what Chris suggested, that is, keeping the tip near the surface the entire time. If I want more foam or I break the surface accidentally, I get some bubbles but the whirlpool quickly incorporates them into the milk.

To summarize, I no longer have the problem I did when I first started with big bubbles all over the place. The only issue now is whether I'm over stretching so that it's not latte art consistency. I think this is due to my inexperience than the machine or tip.

Next time I order something from Chris I'll probably grab the 4-hole tip just to see how it compares, but otherwise it's working out pretty well.

Thanks again for everyone's input!
d