I've had ZERO success w/rice milk. No protein I guess. You can mix soy and rice and get a better result. I used to be able to find Eden's Blend but it got to be very difficult to find, so I switched to soy.

Soy milk steaming requires a couple of things I have found. One it scalds very very easily heat to nothing over about 130. Two the quality varies wildly from one brand to another. Silk seems to create microfoam the best, no other commercial brand I have tried comes close. What I have been using is Pacific Soy Barista grade Soy milk. It is bar far the mist neutral tasting and foams very very well.

Protean is the key. Protean is what creates the bubbles, not fat as some think. Fat will actually keep bubbles from forming which is why milk with a high fat content tends to produce very tight microfoam. It just does not want to generate large bubbles, not that you could not coax it into it. That is also why skim milk will produce dish soap bubbles if you are not careful, no fat to keep the large bubbles from forming.

If you are set on using rice or soy milk, you could try adding a touch of protean powder to it. In the interest of full disclosure, I have never tried it, I prefer 3-4% milk fat cow juice. But in theory, that would get you enough protean to create foam unless the plant added an anti foaming compound to the batch to keep it from foaming up during manufacture.

Having switched to soy milk for my cappuccinos and lattes, I agree that it must be kept down to a lower temperature and that less stretching is generally required.

I have noticed that the microfoam seems to separate more quickly than regular cow milk -- within a minute or so -- and I wondered if this was a common experience or if there are adjustments in the technique required specifically for steaming soy milk?

Something wonderful happened today.

The local store was out of soy milk, so I bought some regular (cow's) 1% milk. I am not a Nazi about the whole soy thing; I just do it for health reasons due to high cholesterol. So I ended up having both regular and soy milk in the refrigerator simultaneously.

Anyway, I steamed some regular milk for my girlfriend's latte. There was a little bit of milk left; being lazy, I just added some soy milk and steamed away for my cappuccino. The result was a incredibly silky smooth and creamy microfoam perfect for latte art.

I couldn't believe it so I repeated it a few more times with about 1/4 regular milk and 3/4 soy milk. Great results! I could even add little rosettes in the cup next to the first one, which I have never been able to do before. Suddenly I was a latte art genius thanks to this super microfoam.

I encourage anyone with an interest in latte art to give it a try.

I don't believe I have heard this mentioned before. It must just add enough of a kind of fat to change the texture.

Glad to hear you have had such stunning results!

You have a couple of before and after pictures?

-Cecil

I used to sneak a bit of cow juice into my ex girlfriend's soy before I steamed it, great results. She consumed milk and dairy regularly so I didn't feel bad about it

Ever tried steaming almond milk? Works great and tastes amazing. Much better than soy or rice milk IMHO. The only draw back is it's pricey

With almonds I would think there would be a toxic build up.

-C

Toxic how? Are you referring to the toxicity of the wild almond's fruit?

I use Pacifica Foods Soy is by far the best I've used to date. We get it at the shop from a distributor, but you might be able to get it directly from Pacifica, or at least ask them where a local retailer would be.

If all else fails, your local Starbucks carries Silk modified to be used for steaming in a cafe setting that should work pretty well. They'll sell you a box for a few bucks.

The mixture of soy and cows milk we call "funky". i.e., one skinny mocha, one cap, and one funky latte for here. It does steam very well, but it sounded too strange for me to actually put one in my mouth. And our espresso is so damn good on its own . . .