So, I finally learned to surf. Microfoam baby!

[jmatt]

Microfoam baby! Microfoam!

I've been readig about microfoam, and I've heard all about "surfing." Well I finally figured it out with the help of a video of someone making microfoam.

My cheapo 10-15 year old machine had a froth-aiding sleeve around the tip of the steam wand. All that did was hide how deep I was actually placing the steam tip.

I removed the extra sleeve, and just barely put the tip into the milk. Here's the part I never understood:

When the tip is barely in the milk and the milk starts to swirl, you literally create a standing wave, perhaps only 2mm high at the backside of the steam tip. A depression forms in the milk as it goes around the tip, and air just barely gets under the steam tip. It's as if the steam hole isn't actually in the milk. It's 2mm deep, yet the moving wave allows air in. (Hence, "surfing"?)

Move up too high, and instant huge (bad) bubbles form. Move too low, and virtually no foam forms.

My impression is that "froth-assist" sleeves are actually micro-foam preventers. They keep people like me from learning what's going on. Once I could actually see the tip in relation to the milk, and watch the effect of moving the tip, I moved into microfoam territory easily. I can also get a great whirlpool going. Something else the froth-assisting sleeve seems to have prevented.

Thanks to the forum in general for the education. For any other novices happening on the threads in the future, I would advise to get rid of any sleeve so you can actually watch the steam tip itself.

[jovial]

jmatt, glad to hear you're getting microfoams using a cheapo steamer.
but your approach seems far too sophisticated... sounds like you need to hold the steam tip at a precision of 2mm accuracy....

I read your post with interest, and hopefully will put some of that knowledge into practice.
I also have a (not cheap, but crappy) steamer... it's from a krups xp4020 machine, which many ppl here are familiar with, i believe.
it normally creates gigantic soap bubbles, but now i have found the art of making microfoams with it... here's the HOWTO.
I hope the methodology or the knowledge helps someone at some point.

What comes out of the steamer is just pure water in its steam form.... it contains no air, as far as i know, and if you dip it into liquid (water or milk) it makes a very annoying loud noise without forming any bubbles or foam.

The add-on frothing components (don't know what they're formally called) are there to introduce air into the steam, so that the milk gets bubbly and frothes.
it often has small holes or slots that let the air in to form the bubbles/foams.
air is sucked in, according to some fluid dynamics, when the steam is passing through this add-on frothing component.
it is the amount of air (that has been sucked in) that determines whether you'll get foam or bubbles.

my krups xp 4020 steamer had a big hole on the top, so i made that much smaller... that led to the formation of smaller bubbles.
now, if you own a $5000 machine then the amount of air and the mechanics of steam is just right to create microfoams, no matter what you do.
(yup, we have one of these machines at work, it's a huge Gaggia with no model number that i can find, and creates microfoam every single time... no matter what you do... no surfacing, no whirling required at all).

but if you own a cheapo or crappy machine.. you have to do surfacing, whirling , or both, to achieve microfoam.
you can whirl the milk, and you do that by inserting the steam at an angle and at the side of the milk, and the milk starts rotating.
what this does is that it creates shear force against the created foam/bubble... and in this way, the soap bubbles burst and you're left with the more robust foam (or microfoam).
i find this whirling to be very useful... it almost always results in microfoam for me.

i don't know what surfacing is, but there is something that i experimented with before, and got some results (not as good as with whirling though).
if you adjust the height of the steam wand such that the small holes of the frothing aid component are at side-by-side with the bubbles that have been formed...
you will suck-in those big bubbles and re-create smaller bubbles (or foam)... it has limited effectiveness and i don't think it's related to anything i've read or seen on these sites....

[cannonfodder]

Frothing with the Gaggia Achille using the froth aid liner with the body removed.

[jovial]

thanks for the video cannonfodder. i guess jmatt has it well covered

I don't think i can ever achieve that using the krups xp4020 steam tip, don't have an image handy to show... but it's damn awful.

i can hardly get the milk rotating as it is, but i'm happy with my whirling... certainly not 1/3 microfoam, but i'd say i get anywhere between 1/5 to 1/4 of microfoam at the end.

[Psyd]

I don't think i can ever achieve that using the krups xp4020 steam tip, don't have an image handy to show... but it's damn awful.

Oh... I dunno 'boud dat.