Which steam boiler pressure for the best milk?

#1: Post by **Simon345** » March 7th, 2019, 12:39 pm

Running my Linea mini at 2 bar and have done that for the last few years but was thinking back to my breville dual boiler which I believe had a steam boiler set to approximately half that pressure and I am pretty sure that I developed better microfoam more often on it.

What does everyone think is the best steam boiler pressure for the 'best odds' milk production?

#2: Post by **another_jim** » March 7th, 2019, 12:58 pm

People are generally comfortable with a certain steaming time, which gets shorter with experience. That discomfort with faster steaming times is what is probably going on here.

A more arcane question is which is better: less high pressure steam or more low pressure steam, under the constraint that the heat flux and steaming time remains the same. I'm fairly certain less high pressure steam is better.

So crank up your boiler, and find a smaller tip.

#3: Post by **vit** » March 7th, 2019, 4:03 pm

For me, starting around 5bar on Bellman is perfectly fine ...

#4: Post by **mgwolf** » March 7th, 2019, 7:21 pm

For steaming smaller quantities of milk, a number of LMLM users have gravitated to two-holed tips or smaller 4-hole tips. Also, the LMLM ships from the factory now set at about 1.7 bar for the steam boiler.

#5: Post by **JonF** » March 7th, 2019, 9:14 pm

Have you ever seen any comments or tests on the taste of the resulting milk? Higher pressure, of course, yields higher outlet temp. Just wonder if cooler and longer tastes better or worse than higher pressure and hotter?

#6: Post by **another_jim** » March 7th, 2019, 9:26 pm

Less steam, less dilution, sweeter taste. That's my experience.

#7: Post by **Jasper_8137** » March 7th, 2019, 10:32 pm

My mini is set at 1.7 and I often wonder if that's too high! I steam enough milk for one cap in ~ 15 seconds at that setting.

#8: Post by **Notnert** » March 8th, 2019, 2:21 pm

I've been using ~2 bar on my Profitec Pro 600 with 4-hole steam tip.