Anvan wrote:Jim, is this self-stretching and self-thickening peculiar to the Strega and the tip you are using, or is this phenomenon universal to your experience?

No, the milk foam thickens up as its proteins curdle around the bubbles. This takes time. If the frothing is very slow, like on a home machine, it happens while you froth. If the frothing goes fast, there is a time delay between the milk heating up and it getting thick.

Jackson, my experiences come from blind and paired comparisons, and other unusual habits. So I'd call them rare, but not unique. The real issue is whether they are replicable. The milk thickening is, as far as I know. Some of the other stuff, not so much.

Anvan wrote:Thanks Jim - I'd missed that fine point, and it goes a long way to explaining the different behavior of milk frothed with my LP versus the GS/3. I can get happy results from either, but the two form a reasonable working definition of "polar opposite" in the steaming department (as well as some others I suppose).

There are fast and slow steamers, but there are also sweet and not so sweet steamers. The home Elekras are medium paced and sweet, the Bezzeras and commercial Elektras fast and sweet. Some of the Cimbali tips are fast and horrible, and I never much liked the slow stock Silvia tip either.

Fast versus slow is easy to explain, it's just heat; but I have no clue why some hole patterns, either fast or slow, make a luscious latex paint micro-foam, while others make a useless curds and whey.

another_jim wrote:There are fast and slow steamers, but there are also sweet and not so sweet steamers. The home Elekras are medium paced and sweet, the Bezzeras and commercial Elektras fast and sweet. Some of the Cimbali tips are fast and horrible, and I never much liked the slow stock Silvia tip either.

Fast versus slow is easy to explain, it's just heat; but I have no clue why some hole patterns, either fast or slow, make a luscious latex paint micro-foam, while others make a useless curds and whey.

Jim, I wonder whether you're looking at variables like temperature, pressure, hole size, with resulting bubble size, and dispersion pattern? Perhaps the combination of these affects how quickly the milk is heated and affects protein bonding through sensitive chemical changes. Probably the engineers at Elektra played with such variables until they got something that worked well. There's no replacement for hands-on experimenting. So maybe some of the variables can be adjusted with barista skills -- getting a good sense of one's machine. Jim and others, have you found that it takes some practice working out water purging, tip placement, valve opening and steam time to dial in a machine?

I'll need to make some videos. With good and fast 3 to 5 hole steam tips. all the stretching, tearing, sucking and other techniques they talk about are about are as much use as abracadabra. You flush the tip, stick it straight in the milk, heat it in a few seconds, let the tip give it all the swirl it needs, then you stop steaming and wait for the milk to get a texture like latex paint (giving it an occasional swirl). Then it's ready to pour. With a slow 1 or 2 hole tip, you will need to angle it to get the milk swirl, and you'll need to go longer, with the milk ready to pour when you stop steaming; but the rest is the same -- no tearing, stretching, or other drama.

If your tip does lots of drama and FX when it steams, it probably isn't that good.