I'm usually steaming about three to three-and-a-half ounces at a shot, in a twelve ounce pitcher, and I'm using an Astoria 14 litre steam engine to do it. Both wands come with monster five-hole tips on them.
Seriously, jam a toothpick into all but one or two of the holes in your wand, and use a razor knife to cut it off flush. Work it in their good, so it doesn't squirt out under pressure. I've been doing this to keep my seam under control for four or five years now with this machine, and it works fine. I've changed out the toothpick bits once, and they looked no worse for the wear. Once you've found the number of holes that works well for you, if you need to, you can order a tip with that number of holes in it.

my new 12oz and 16oz pitchers are working like gems. the 20oz is just too large (though it was fine when steaming off an e61/hx and had plenty to time to manipulate the milk). with the gs3, feels like 10sec and the milk is art ready. more than that is cappuccino foam.

I was using a GS/3 with a knife tip today, and found it very usable. The guy who owned it was telling me that with the stock tip there is too much power, but the knife helps pull it back a bit. I was having lots of success with it.

Curious. Since the GS3 has a dedicated steam boiler, all you have to do is turn down the pressurestat. No toothpick in the wand holes and or other special voodoo is needed. Just turn down the pressure.

The GS/3 does not have a pressurestat.


Just go into programming,

Quick Key 3 : Press and hold the FN button (programming) and then press the Large Single Coffee button whilst the machine is on.

This will take you straight to the Temp Adjustment for the Steam Boiler where you will be able to lower it and therefore the pressure using the Single Espresso button (lower) or the Double Espresso button (higher).

Regards
Eric

cannonfodder wrote:Curious. Since the GS3 has a dedicated steam boiler, all you have to do is turn down the pressurestat. No toothpick in the wand holes and or other special voodoo is needed. Just turn down the pressure.

I almost totally disagree with this statement. Most machines, especially commercial class machines but also seemingly most prosumer machines, come with steam tips designed for steaming large amounts of milk. The problem isn't too much or too little steam pressure too few or too many steam holes the problem is mismatched total steam tip area openings versus available steam versus amount of milk to be steamed.

Simply reducing steam pressure when having a steam tip designed for large volumes of milk in order to steam small volume of milk results in steaming slower yes, but also greatly reduced steam velocity which is key for good texture. EPNW makes an excellent four hole LM reduced steam volume tip which yields excellent velocity without being too fast to handle. We use them on one wand all three Lineas, stock tip other wand. Synesso also makes one which isn't quite as reduced steam volume.

Plugging some of the holes on a tip with too large openings for desired steam speed works, but often at the expense of ease of getting a good vortex which is also a key to good texture.

Edit: And using proper size pitcher for amount of milk as has already been mentioned...

so far, i've found the pitcher to be important. i tried lowering boiler temp through the pid, but didn't like the results. so i put the temp back up and ordered a 10oz pitcher (as per Marshall's rec). it's fast, but it works well for cappuccinos... still no latte art foam, but i like the taste of what i'm getting.

and no, there's no pressure stat.