cannonfodder wrote:You may be surprised at my MacGuyver skills, I have even used a metal coat hanger as a welding rod. I am also no genius, if I was I would be able to spell , but I digress.

Only two uses for a metal coat hangar? Not impressed.

Truly, though, I have read your blogs and posts about refurbish... er, bringing machines back from the dead. If you had no MacGuyver skills, you'd never be able to finish one!
Welding rod, hunh? How well did that work out?

As you can imagine, not very well. It does not work with acetylene; you have to use an ARC welder. That is just one of the many uses for a coat hanger. They also work well for hanging brake calipers from the strut springs, muffler hanging hooks, cable pull tools in in-wall cable installs just to name a few. As to the BLOG, I haven't looked at it for months. I should probably update it some day.

I don't remember where the toothpick trick came from. I have to admit I used it for near a year before I got the steaming down pat on the Factory. Once I got comfortable with two holes I knocked out the plug and used the three holes as the manufacturer intended them to be used, and life was good.

Well - ahem - back to microfoam. I find I can produce reasonable microfoam on many machines including cheapo DeLonghi and Krups, but can I get decent microfoam from my la Pavoni? Not on your nelly. My first problem is that machine arrived with too much boiler pressure - it used to sit around 1.5 bar and turning the steam on with those three nozzles pretty much blew the milk right out of the jug.

So I cranked down the pressure to 0.8 bar but I still have trouble. The main problem seems to be that the wand at its lowest seems to be sitting about 45 degrees from vertical. That, combined with the fact that the three nozzles point outwards and down also at 45 deg, means that the front nozzle is squirting horizontally. Needs a sketch but I hope you get my meaning.

Anyway, the result is a massive whirlpool in my small jug (I usually only steam for 1 cup) and the turbulence is so great that I can't get the wand close to the surface without the milk jumping around and producing a bubble-bath instead of lovely microfoam.

There have to be others who can get a la Pavoni to do this right - it has me stumped. Maybe I should bend the wand down closer to vertical (eeek!) - but I don't know where it's supposed to be.

I have an Expobar Pulser and it steams just fine.
The original tip is a bit hard to manage although.
CF advice is the way to go, it sounds that you are frothing too long.
--
Danny

The only thing you can do to correct it is to add more fat!

The increased fat content means that the milk is thicker and therefore drains from the foam slower meaning it is better for all things artistic.

Jim's advice reflects my experience as well. The higher fat content milk produces a finer, silkier microfoam with ease. Unfortunately I find that the high fat content from whole milk tends to squash the more delicate flavors in espresso.

Lower fat milk (skim for instance) will produce an enormous amount of foam (double the original volume of milk) with ease. However that microfoam tends to be dryer and stiffer which makes latte art nearly impossible, it also creates larger bubbles and is less forgiving. You can partially compensate by stretching less. Instead of stretching to 80F, stop at 60-70F and make sure you plunge the tip so no more air is injected into the milk.

My personal preference is 2% milk. It hits the sweet spot for me. There is enough fat that the microfoam is wet and silky but still low enough that it can be easily stretch further to create more volume for a traditional monk cap cappuccino. I also get more depth in flavor and sweetness over skim but without the over powering, nuance squashing, richness of whole milk.

You could always keep a half gallon of whole milk in the chill chest, then add a dash to the 1% for steaming.

cannonfodder wrote:You could always keep a half gallon of whole milk in the chill chest, then add a dash to the 1% for steaming.

Half and half or whole cream keeps for a long time, can be bought in very small quantity and can help here as well. Just a little dash will do ya. And for when your feeling really decadent, frothing some half and half for a Cafe Breve is a great treat!