After years and years of steaming milk and watching countless how-to's and learning lots of techniques, I'm still frustrated by how seldom I am happy with my steamed milk. It's good enough to always get the 'wow' from visitors followed by the cell phone picture. But I kind of cringe when I watch them drink it and see that when it's half finished the foam is completely gone. I often get milk that is just short of velvety, with lot's of tiny micro bubbles which start to dissipate very soon after pouring. I've tried different brands of milk and lots of things. I use a Cimbali M20 lever. The steam wand seems to constantly have water mixed with the steam no matter how much I purge it. Do machines vary with regards to how dry the steam is? If my machine is on the "wet" end of steamers how does this affect steaming, other than the obvious addition of some water to the milk? Any thoughts on steam quality and its affect on milk would be appreciated.
Barry.

This advice might be totally inapplicable to your machine, but here goes anyway. I have a Silvia, which is known for having fairly wet steam also. What I've learned is that how I purge the steam wand makes a big difference.

My best results come from purging the wand very slowly in 2-3 steps. First, I let the boiler get up in the approximate range of where I'm going to be steaming (280F or higher). Then, I just barely open the steam valve. Just barely. This allows a gentle stream of pure water (with no steam) to escape. After a few seconds, the water stops and nothing comes out. So I open the valve just a tiny bit more. A bit more water escapes. After a couple more rounds of this, I don't get any more water -- just dry air. Then, I know it's ready.

Using this method, I've had consistently excellent microfoam.

I think that is working on your Silvia because the boiler is small and any water emptying is very helpful. On the lever your only option may be trying to lower the water level or raising your boiler pressure.

With levers often being very simple, its likely that there's water entering your steam tap. Does your machine re-fill automatically? If it does you may want to try lowering the water volume in the boiler to get the steam pipe out of the water. You could also raise pressure and temperature, but water gets more liquidey at higher pressure, and you risk pulling your espresso too hot.

Lower your boiler level sensor to drop the water level in the boiler. That will give you dryer steam but at the cost of velocity. You get more volume but it drops in pressure quicker. Raising the level probe will give you wetter steam, less volume but higher velocity.

How much is too wet? Weigh your milk before and after steaming to about 140-150F (or whatever it is you are steaming to). If you added 10%-12% of weight, you are within normal added "wetness" to the milk.

If somebody can get below 10%, I'd like to know!

Thank you, yes, keeping the water level lower has helped a lot. I have unhooked the auto refill and use the manual fill lever to fill the boiler, so i just keep it about three quarters up the sight tube and the steam is much dryer and slightly less powerful.