So I recently got a Rancilio Silvia V3 and have been steaming milk (steam wand with one hole) over and over again trying to get it right. This is my first espresso machine and before this I had only ever used a drip machine.

I've done a significant amount of reading from other forums and How To's as well as watched a number of YouTube videos.

After about a gallon of milk - I didn't waste it all, I've been drinking cappuccino's with hot milk :-/ - I think I've learned how to create thick cappuccino foam, but have utterly failed in creating microfoam.

From my understanding, the thicker foam results when too much air is released into the milk, right? I just can't seem to find that "sweet spot" no matter how many times I try. Here are some pictures from my latest attempt - can anybody give me some additional pointers to help me start creating microfoam.

I'm putting the steam wand just barely through the top of the milk and listening for that chirping (tch tch tch). I can't seem to get a constant sound, but instead I get the sound for a bit, then have to reposition the jug in order to obtain the sound again. I do understand the concept of lowering the jug as the foam increases, but I'm having a harder time keeping the wand at the right spot consistently like the YouTube baristas do.

The other problem I have is that at about 100°F I stop stretching and dip the steam wand deeper into the milk until I reach 140°F. All the while I'm getting the milk to swirl in a clockwise direction, but as you can see in the pictures below, it doesn't look like the foam is mixing with the rest of the milk. When I'm done steaming I do swirl it around on the counter, but that doesn't seem to help.

The first picture is the only type of foam I am able to create poured into a cappuccino.


The second image is another batch of the foam in a clear cup from the top.


The last is that same clear cup from the side where you can clearly see the line between the thicker foam and the warm milk.



Any help you guys can offer on what I'm doing wrong or if I'm even creating the cappuccino foam correctly is greatly appreciated. If my description of what I'm doing isn't very clear, I can get my roommate to record me "trying" to make microfoam and post the link on here. Thanks again!

A couple of things that might help:

1. Use whole milk...it's easier to create microfoam with than 2% or skim
2. Use a 12oz pitcher with a "pointed" pouring lip - fill to a bit less than half-way
3. Keep the pitcher in the refrigerator...keeps the milk cooler longer in the beginning of steaming
4. Purge the steam wand to clear out water that has condensed and collected in the wand
5. Angle the steam tip about 30-45 degrees away from your espresso machine
6. Tilt the pitcher toward the steam tip so it is parallel to the steam wand slant
7. Start with the entire steam "tip" or nozzle submerged
8. Position the steam wand about 1/2 " from the side of the pitcher...sometimes it helps to have the wand touch the edge of the pitcher...kind of using the edge to steady the pitcher...but the nozzle still needs to be away from the pitcher wall - again, roughly 1/2 " or less
9. turn on the steam full power and slowly raise the nozzle (by lowering the pitcher) until you hear that sucking "tch" sound
10. Don't stretch (add air) to the milk beyond 80 degrees...don't worry if the milk doesn't rise much in the pitcher. Good microfoam is about the fine air bubbles that you can't see, not the height of the foam.
11. Sink the nozzle into the milk so it is submerged say 1/2 inch or so...keep the wand to one side of the pitcher but not against the wall...whirlpool motion is great but important thing is that there is enough rolling motion to evenly spread the microfoam through all of the milk. If you submerge too low you'll start hearing a screeching sound which means you need to raise the wand a bit
12. Stop the texturizing (incorporating of the microfoam) when the temp hits 135 - 140 degrees
13. Tap the pitcher on the counter (a rubber tamper pad is great for this...no dents to counter) a couple of times
14. Swirl the milk until it looks like paint (yeah, it actually does when you get it right)
15. Tilt your cup (assumes was warmed up and already has the espresso and any sweeteners you may want to use in it) and start your pour a couple inches above the surface of the milk...this makes it sink under the surface
16. As your cup fills start lowering the pitcher so the pouring "lip" is 1/4 to 1/2 " above the crema and start creating any design you have mastered...or just make one up as it starts to stay on the surface. Some rest the pitcher on the edge of the cup to steady themselves. Try and keep your rate of pour roughly the same throughout the pour.

As you improve you will see that it isn't that complicated unless you get hung up in the details (some would say trying to become too exact). Don' forget to clean and purge the steam wand when you are finished

Hope this helps

steve
12.

ben-ari wrote:I'm putting the steam wand just barely through the top of the milk and listening for that chirping (tch tch tch). I can't seem to get a constant sound, but instead I get the sound for a bit, then have to reposition the jug in order to obtain the sound again. I do understand the concept of lowering the jug as the foam increases, but I'm having a harder time keeping the wand at the right spot consistently like the YouTube baristas do.

Hold pitcher handle in one hand, and stabilize its bottom with the other hand to increase your stability, especially in first part, as you're trying to just get little hissing. But be careful not to take it out too much and get big bubbles.

After u got enough stretch, dip inside a bit...

don't get the milk swirling in a whirlpool.... instead, move the tip around and in different angles, until u find a spot that makes it all wave violently... not sure how else to describe ...without air coming in at this point! this means you're mixing all the air u put in throughout the milk. You'll find it quicker as u get used to it. Now when your hand gets hot that you can't hold the bottom anymore shut it off!

If u feel u don't get enough 'power', try maybe turning knob a bit more.... or vice versa.

Hope some key words in our descriptions might help u... eventually u'll get it for sure!!

i also have a silvia V3 and i am fairly recent to making capps and lattes at home. i've had the silvia since last may (2010) and have been training pretty hard since then. i have also read many words and watched many videos about how to get the microfoam happening and it was all very hit and miss for me until about the last month and a half, when i have stumbled onto a fairly consistent way to get at least decent, and usually much better than decent, microfoam from the silvia.

what i have stumbled on is contrary to some of the things that i have read and watched and i am convinced that there is more than one way to skin this cat, but this is what has worked for me with the silvia. i have tried a lot of different variations and nuances but one thing has made a bigger difference than anything else, and that is starting to steam at the right time in silvia's boiler heating cycle so that i have maximum steam output.

what i have noticed is that i get really mediocre results (something like how your pictures look) when i don't have enough steam pressure which then forces me to keep the tip too close to the surface in order to get any foam at all. this is what i think is your primary issue. you need to get the tip down a little bit deeper, BUT, this won't seem right and won't work at all UNLESS you have the silvia pumping out steam at the max it can.

additionally, without enough steam pressure, the milk doesn't really get stirred adequately in the "texturing" phase and that resulted [for me] in the kind of separation between liquid milk and foam that i can see in your picture in the clear glass.

when there is enough steam pressure, you can keep the tip down a little lower and the natural wavy chaos that is created in the pitcher with lots of steam will automatically introduce air in the right way to create the microfoam. it sort of just works.

so here is what i do as best as i can describe it:

1. half-fill a 12-oz pitcher with whole milk and put it in the freezer
2. grind, tamp, and pull my shot and put the cappa cup on top of the silvia to stay warm. as i am turning off the espresso flow, i am turning on the steamer switch.
3. after about 20 seconds, i bleed out all the water in the steam wand, until it starts to weakly spit some steam. then turn the valve back off and wait.
4. while waiting for the boiler to get up to temp, i dump the extracted puck and clean up the portafilter
5. when i think it is getting somewhat close to max temp (timing intuition developed over the months), i take the pitcher out of the freezer and set it near the silvia.
   
   [now here is something that is a little different from what i have read and seen on the net: i wait until the boiler light goes out. many people will say that it is better to start frothing before the light goes out so that the boiler keeps heating. i have tried that (a lot) and all i can say is that it hasn't worked as well for me as waiting for the light to go off.]
6. the moment that the light goes off, i immediately blast out any remaining water in the wand into the tray (1 or 2 sec blast), then turn the valve back off, bring up the pitcher and position the tip a good inch below the surface RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PITCHER (i have tried it off on the side and it works, but for whatever reason, the middle is working better for me more consistently), then i turn the steam on pretty high (which is maybe 3/4 of a turn to a full turn or so).
7. as soon as i turn on the valve and the surface of the milk starts to roil, i then raise or lower the pitcher to keep the milk really roiling with a very occasional tcchhrrp sound. there is a really good size standing wave on the surface and all of the milk is getting moved around really rapidly. this intense "roiling" of the milk is the one and only observable thing that i can consistently associate with good microfoam from the silvia. you cannot get this kind of action in the pitcher unless the silvia is at pretty close to the max steam pressure that it can do, and i think this is one of the main things that makes frothing a challenge on the silvia because you have to time it right. honestly though, when you hit the right timing so the pressure is high, it's pretty easy to get the microfoam.
8. i don't have a thermometer, so i can't tell you what actual temp is in there when i stop "stretching" and push the tip down a little further, but the side of the pitcher is pretty warm. at that point i push the tip down really just a tiny bit lower -- maybe half an inch or so, and really work on keeping the roiling of the milk going as best as i can. again, with good steam pressure this is not so hard to do. you are slightly tipping the pitcher this way or that until you get good movement and then you just hold it steady there as the foam mixes in and the milk volume expands a bit more.
9. when the pitcher is too hot to touch and the sound starts to deepen, i turn off the steam valve and wait a second or two for it to completely stop.
10. then let it rest for 10-15 seconds, a couple raps on the counter and a little bit of swirling (not much really) and it is so pretty.

some days are still better than others, but that routine gets me at least passable microfoam every time now.

to reiterate, my guess is that you are too much on the surface of the milk which is what creates that sea-foam with the big bubbles, and in my case, when i was having that kind of problem, it seems to me that it was because i was not getting enough steam pressure out of the silvia and that forced me to stay on the surface to get any kind of foam / froth at all.

my "breakthrough" came when, a couple times, i let the boiler heat up [what i thought was] "too far" until the light turned off and there was way more steam pressure than i was usually getting and it ended up making the microfoam production almost effortless (and also very fast).

after the months of banging my head against this particular wall, i sincerely hope something in here helps you on your way.

Thanks for all the detailed replies. I tried again, incorporating your tips, but still came up short. I do still have a couple of questions:

Is whole milk really that much better for making microfoam? I would prefer to stay with 1% since it's much healthier. Is it possible to get that nice microfoam with 1%, or is it just that much harder? I'm going to buy some whole milk after work today and try working with that.

Steve C, you said:

6. Tilt the pitcher toward the steam tip so it is parallel to the steam wand slant
8. Position the steam wand about 1/2 " from the side of the pitcher...sometimes it helps to have the wand touch the edge of the pitcher...kind of using the edge to steady the pitcher...but the nozzle still needs to be away from the pitcher wall - again, roughly 1/2 " or less

Did you mean have the side of the pitcher wall be parallel to the steam wand that enters the pitcher? If so, how do you then make that same steam wand touch the pitcher?

PJV,

I think you're right in that I wasn't letting the full power of the steam come out. I tried doing it the way you suggested this morning, but I must have still done something wrong (I used 1% milk though).

Is it important to allow the machine to warm up for 30 minutes? I haven't been doing this? Could that be the problem?

Also, when you bleed the steam wand of condensation after it has warmed up for about 20 seconds, how long does it usually bleed for. I did that with my wand this morning and at first it shot out a steam of hot water, then wet steam. I think it was bleeding for 20+ seconds, but it seemed like too long a time. Is that right though?

Thanks again for all the help!
-Jason

i have never tried it with 1%. i have used 2% and that worked fine for me (but i like whole milk better). i have read both that it is EASIER and HARDER to get good microfoam with lower milkfat percentages. gotta love those interwebs.

i do let the machine warm up for probably an hour or more (i have it on a timer that wakes up a good bit before i do), but i think that is more of an issue for pulling a good shot because the group head, portafilter, and all the associated heavy metal in there needs to get up to temperature in order to keep a reasonably consistent temperature during the shot to get a good extraction. in terms of steaming milk, i think that if you have good steam pressure, you are good to go.

my answer to your bleeding time question is that it varies from morning to morning. sometimes a lot of water comes out before it starts spitting any steam. sometimes it starts spitting after a second. i'd say it is around five seconds on average. 20+ sounds like a long time to be flowing water out of the wand if you have already turned on the steam switch. maybe wait a little longer before you purge the water out. and maybe this DOES have something to do with not having the machine up to temp. just to be totally clear, when i am "bleeding" that means i have the steam valve open, not the hot water switch on.

also, in this initial bleed, i am not getting ALL of the water out of the steam system. just most of it. i turn the valve back off when it is mostly steam, but still spitting a little bit of wetness here and there. in the second short purge i do right before i put the tip in the milk, i blow out the last bits of real wetness.

when you tried it this morning, was the milk really being intensely agitated by the steam pressure? i know i sound like a broken record, or maybe i have become a hammer and everything looks like a nail to me, but like i said, the biggest single difference that i found between sea foam and microfoam was getting enough steam pressure coming out of the wand. when i say that the milk is being intensely agitated, or "roiled" i mean that all the milk in the pitcher is really moving a lot -- not just at the surface.

i think that if you have enough steam pressure coming out of the wand, you could keep the tip as low as just above where it makes a low roaring sound throughout the whole time and you would get a much better result than you have been getting, although not as good as you can get by finding the real sweet spot.

also with enough pressure, it doesn't take very long to get 6 oz. up to temperature and texture. i haven't timed it, but i was thinking about it this morning and i'm going to guess that it might have been 15 - 20 seconds total time from turning on the steam to turning it off. maybe even less. i will actually count it off later this morning tomorrow when i do another one for my gf and report back. i'll see if i can get a video as well.

So I bought a jug of 2% milk today after work and tried making some microfoam using a similar technique to what pjv suggested, but it seems like I'm having the same problems. When my roommate came home, I had him record me failing at making microfoam so you might be able to see more clearly what I'm doing wrong - again I appreciate the help. (There's an HD version available if you click on the size to the right of the progress bar after you hit play. I recommend watching it in 720.)



Some more explanation of what I did -

1. I read that you can either let the machine warm up for 30 minutes or manually warm it up by first letting water out of the hot water tap (middle button) until the boiler comes on, then purge the portafilter until the boiler comes on again. Once the boiler goes off, wait 30 seconds (temperature surfing) then pull the shot.
2. It looks like bleeding took about 8 seconds this time - I grossly overestimated last time. However, did I stop it at the right point or was the steam still too watery?
3. I definitely took the milk out of the freezer too soon. I need to time the warming up of the boiler for the steam to get a better idea of when to take the milk out. But I don't think this was such a huge reason for my results.
4. By the way, I'm steaming the milk in a 12oz jug.
5. It seems like the milk is being intensely agitated, right?
6. Is the wand position correct or should it be higher, lower, further to the side?
7. The total time it takes to steam the milk up to 80 degrees is 8.6 seconds and it takes and additional 14.8 seconds to texturize the milk and get it up to 135 degrees - total steaming time = 23.5 seconds. This time frame is similar to what you laid out.

The only thing that makes sense to me at this point is that the steam wand is too high in the milk when stretching it. However in this attempt I tried to lower it from what I had been doing in the past, but I'm getting the same results as before. What else should I try?

ok dude, i see the problem.

you have to take that damn white rubber film off your drip tray cover. i don't know how you could think that you could make microfoam with that condom on your drip tray.

but seriously, you just did it in your video. that is pretty good microfoam in there -- way, way better than the pictures you put in your original post. keep practicing along the lines that you did in that video and you will get a feel for what to vary to get better and better results. to be specific, if you want microfoam that is more suited to latte art, i think you just need to stop stretching and start texturing a little sooner (forget about the thermometer, what matters is how much air has been introduced).

if you want to make pretty pictures, you need to learn how to pour better. i'm no expert as the picture below will demonstrate, but someone who knows how to pour would have been able to make a better picture with the foam you created, which was a bit thick, but not totally unworkable. again, i am a long way from being an expert, but i think that for starters you should try pouring faster and see what happens.

(edit: i just watched the video again) i think that if i had your end result in the pitcher in that video, before i poured it i would have poured it into the big pitcher (so it wouldn't spill all over while i...), rapped it hard on the counter a few times to get rid of the bigger bubbles, and really swirled it around for a few seconds. then poured it.

don't worry about the freezer thing -- it's overkill and probably not really necessary at all. i just do it because i've been doing it.

did you not notice a pretty big difference in the foam you created in that video vs. what you took pictures of in your original post? the one from your video was nicely mixed -- it looked to me like you were pouring foam throughout the entire pour. no real separation between foam and liquid milk like in your original photos.

my diagnosis is that you are on the right track and i now defer to folks who know more than me because yours is about as good as mine.

btw, i counted while i was steaming this morning and it was right around 20 seconds start to finish for about the same qty as you did. this is what it looked like after i poured it:

The texture of you milk in the video looks pretty good.

It looks like you are creating all of the bubbles while trying to expand the milk. The steam pressure is coming off the bottom of the pitcher creating bubbles and not spinning the milk. You might try keeping the wand closer to the edge of the pitcher rather than the middle. Sometimes, I let the wand rest in the pouring spout to help stabilize. You can also angle the pitcher to make the milk spin. Then you may have a problem with the milk trying to whirl right out of the pitcher. For this reason, I find it is easier to steam in a 20oz. pitcher.

Shaun

one more thing: i don't know if you are doing this and it just didn't get captured on the video, but i think that when you are done steaming, in addition to wiping the milk off the steam wand you should also give it a one second blast into the drip tray (or waste container) to spit out any milk that might have crept up into the wand when you shut off the steam while it was in your milk pitcher.