Hello all,

I am a new member here and eager to partake. I have a Vibiemme Domobar Super which I have had for 7 years and have been using without issues for as long as that. My foam used to be perfect!

For the last 3 days however, my foam has gone bubbly. I have taken off the steam wand, cleaned the wand but the "foam" is very active and bubbles constantly after I have finished steaming.

Anyone have any clues?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

Could it be the milk?
Buy some fresh and see if maybe you got a bad carton.
(assuming you haven't changed milk supplier)

Failing that, could it be scale build up?
Have you descaled lately?

You bought the wrong milk?
They mis-packaged or mis-processed the milk?
Cows were switched to different feed?
Mike was poorly stored before shipping/selling?
Try a different brand.

Easy enough to get fresh milk.

Assuming that's not the problem, what's up with your boiler (not pump!) pressure? Does it take longer to steam than it used to? Less time? You may be getting not enough or too much steam.

Many years ago during my first adventures with adjusting the pstat to control temps I experienced similar inexplicable problems. Inexplicable anyway until the piano fell.

BDL

As others have mentioned, milk is often the cause. I will occasionally get a bad gallon. It is fine for drinking but simply does not work well for frothing. It almost sounds like you have the wrong fat content. Where whole milk will produce a very fine texture, low fat milks like skim are much more prone to dish soap bubbles due to the low fat content.

cannonfodder wrote:Where whole milk will produce a very fine texture, low fat milks like skim are much more prone to dish soap bubbles due to the low fat content.

Fwiw, what I've discovered is that proteins make the bubbles, fat inhibits the frothing; this is why it is easier to stretch skim, but you end up with a stiff foam floating on top. Fat = flavor and mouthfeel.

(also why egg whites can be whipped but a bit of yolk can kill a meringue, and why adding oil to pasta water keeps it from foaming)

I experienced this with some (not ultra)pasteurized organic milk that was working well until a week after the sell by date I had trouble stretching it and once done steaming, what foam was there just turned into bubbles. Tasted alright, but buying fresh milk (same brand and type) fixed the foam issue.

allon wrote:Fwiw, what I've discovered is that proteins make the bubbles, fat inhibits the frothing; this is why it is easier to stretch skim, but you end up with a stiff foam floating on top. Fat = flavor and mouthfeel.

(also why egg whites can be whipped but a bit of yolk can kill a meringue, and why adding oil to pasta water keeps it from foaming)

Correct, which is why the low fat milk is prone to large bubbles unless you take care in steaming.

Ok, I've been learning with 1% so far on my Livietta and I just can't get good foam, it's mostly mid-sized to large bubbles with just a tiny amount of microfoam. I need to practice with whole milk this weekend before I return to low fat.

I've gone thru about 3 gallons now of fresh ice cold Horizons whole milk, and have yet managed to get much more than a drop of microfoam. I get an inch and a half of stiff foam (normally no large bubbles) and the rest is just hot milk....

I've watched every youtube video, read every informative post and link I could, for 3 months now. The only variables that I can't understand is while at first, my duetto belched out tons of water during steaming ( even after a good 7-8 second purge of the steam arm) to now, where suddenly, without me making any changes, the steam seams quite dry and mild and weak. I can literally cup my bare hand right under the steam tip, 2.5 inches away, and not burn myself. The temps of the steam boiler has always been 254-255 consistently on the PID. at about 1.1 bar of pressure.

Any advice as to what's possibly right, and wrong would be greatly appreciated!