Can you produce better "contest quality" microfoam on smaller machines with a single hole tip (like a Silvia) compared to a big multi-hole tip steam monster like a HX or DB?

With the lower power of my Silvia I was able to get a good whirlpool and my microfoam had smaller bubbles and was much better mixed. On my Anita and Mini-Vivaldi I have yet to get anything nearly as good. The edges of my rosettas are very poorly defined.

I've tried all the regular tricks (stretching time, 4 hole tip, 3 hole tip, many different milks, all pitcher sizes and milk volume, etc). Nothing seems to work.

I'm thinking of making a custom one hole tip. Any other wild suggestions or things I may have missed?

On my Alexia I tried the no-burn steam arm, which is way too fast and outruns the boiler's heating element, so the temp plummets when you crank it open. The result was very poor quality foam, but it steamed really fast! I choked it down to just one hole by blocking the other, which helped, but not enough. I ended up pulling off that arm and putting on the original since I can make beautiful microfoam with it in my sleep.

My friend has an Expobar Lever and upgraded the tip from a single hole burn arm (standard arm) to the Brewtus' no-burn (same as QuickMill and Giotto). On his machine I could also get high quality microfoam, but it is a little tougher due to the speed.

Your Anita should have had the same arm and tip as my Alexia, unless you opted for the no-burn option. If yours came with the standard arm and small two-hole tip, you should have no trouble getting beautiful microfoam. If you are getting big bubbles on it, your tip is too high during the stretching phase, and you may want to shorten it. Videos on the technique say to stretch to 100 degrees, but I find this a little too high for me, so I usually sink the tip at 80 and make sure when I do that I'm folding all the milk in the pitcher.

On your Vivaldi you can try just blocking some of the tips with a toothpick to see if choking it down helps. Chris Coffee's smaller diameter 4-hole tip was designed to work with smaller quantities of milk (ie, the home user), as far as I understand. Choking down the tips you have now should help and let you know if slowing down is more inline with your technique.

One last thing...in order to not waste milk, you can try frothing using a few drops of dish soap in water, which will end up looking like milk once you are done. It's a good way to practice without dumping milk down the drain.

Hope this helps...

Endo wrote:Can you produce better "contest quality" microfoam on smaller machines with a single hole tip (like a Silvia) compared to a big multi-hole tip steam monster like a HX or DB?

Initially yes. After a few years of a cappa every morning, no.

1. Make sure the tip isn't a loser (e.g. too many or too large holes for the boiler size, leading to inadequate steam pressure, or some sort of "cheater" tip that blows bubbles)
2. Just keep practicing.

It's all in the wrist me thinks, not that I can pour a pretty picture to save my life. My machines all have characteristics that require slightly different technique. My hot rod Cimbali Jr whips up micro foam in a matter of seconds thereby requiring me to pay attention right from the get go whereas my Olympias are a little more forgiving and allow a somewhat sloppier approach. As Jim states, time, practice.
-Ian

uscfroadie wrote:
Your Anita should have had the same arm and tip as my Alexia, unless you opted for the no-burn option. If yours came with the standard arm and small two-hole tip, you should have no trouble getting beautiful microfoam.

My Anita came with a "one of a kind" two hole tip that I never saw on any other Anita. It didn't work well at all. I since sold it.

uscfroadie wrote:On your Vivaldi you can try just blocking some of the tips with a toothpick to see if choking it down helps. Chris Coffee's smaller diameter 4-hole tip was designed to work with smaller quantities of milk (ie, the home user), as far as I understand. Choking down the tips you have now should help and let you know if slowing down is more inline with your technique.

That's a good idea. I'll try the toothpick trick next. I believe my problem stems from having one of the 4 holes far out of the milk and another buried under during the stretching. This creates the big bubbles. A single hole allows you to get the depth "just right" and also slows things down to make it easier to control.

If you want to see pictures of art with both my Vivaldi and Silvia, (the Vivaldi was not one of my betters) you can follow it here:

http://www.s1cafe.com./viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1063

wildbwilson wrote: As Jim states, time, practice.
-Ian

I was getting good latte art after only 1 month on the Silvia. I'm coming up 3 months with the Vivaldi....still no where close. Now I know why they call them "Pro-sumers". It takes a pro to work them!

Endo wrote:"contest quality"

Consider: The Viv is $2k (+/-). Tips are cheap. Browse Chris's offerings and play your tip hunches until you come up with one you like (and you'll have a few in store for when you change your mind.) I settled on a small 2-hole that required an adapter for the Viv. But I switched around, particularly as I used different pitchers. IMO, Milk amount and pitcher size/shape are as important in this equation as steam volume/tip.

Martin wrote:Consider: The Viv is $2k (+/-). Tips are cheap. Browse Chris's offerings and play your tip hunches until you come up with one you like (and you'll have a few in store for when you change your mind.) I settled on a small 2-hole that required an adapter for the Viv. But I switched around, particularly as I used different pitchers. IMO, Milk amount and pitcher size/shape are as important in this equation as steam volume/tip.

Yes. That sounds right.

I just finished plugging all the holes on my tip with toothpicks, except for one hole.

The single hole brought me right back to my Silvia microfoam experience. I think I'll take your advice and see if I can buy a 2 hole and a 1 hole tip. Do they sell one hole tips for the Vivaldi?

I may make a one hole buy soldering shut the holes on my present tip and drilling one 1.3mm hole in the center.

I'll keep working with the 4 hole tip (since it is about 10 seconds faster than the 1 hole). I'd like to develop the "pro" steaming technique, but in the end, I may just end up prefering the slower speed and microfoam provided by a single hole tip.

I made a big jump in microfoam quality this morning with the powerful multi-hole Vivaldi steam tip. I thought I'd pass it on:

"The key seems to be to ignore the steaming videos (from Chris Coffee) where the wand is at an angle during stretching and instead go with a perfectly vertical wand. This gives every steam jet exactly the same surface depth during stretching phase. By doing this, big bubbles are avoided. I then roll simply by submerging to the exact center of the milk and just leave it there. This forms a "toroid" type swirl that blends into the center rather than trying to form a whirlpool like with the single hole tip."

Not sure I've seen to many people using this "vertical wand" technique (I may be wrong). Most videos I have seen show stretching with the wand at an angle.

This simple vertical technique seems to work very well with my "tapered" pitcher. I imagine it would work well with the Espro Toroid pitcher as well. I'm not sure how it would work with straight sided pitchers.

On (powerful, multi-hole tip) commercial machines I still angle the steam wand.
You just need to make sure all the holes are below the surface to avoid blowing BABs ("big-ass-bubbles").
The big challenge with the more powerful machines is that everything happens quickly.
This leaves little room for error.
This is especially true at two points:
1 - at the start,
2 - when transitioning from stretch to steam.