Milk frothing on Rancilio Silvia watery

#1: Post by **dmbartender** » March 18th, 2018, 2:42 am

Hello everyone,

I have been reading your forum for a while, and have been trying to get a decent cappuccino at home for the last two years. I have had a cheap EC680, a Rocket Evo, Gaggia Classic, and now a Rancilio Silvia. I have never been able to make microfoam well enough on any of the machines, but what I am finding now is that the foam, even when the consistency is decent, is watery.

I have measured the weight of the milk before and after frothing, and with the Rancilio, I always get between 35-45g of extra weight afterwards, which must come from a watery steam. Is this normal? I never measured with the Rocket, but I couldn't get decent microfoam with that heat exchanger either. In fact, the only machine I ever got good consistent microfoam with was the post 2015 Gaggia Classic.

Oh and of course I have purged the wand throroughly. I have even purged that sucker for 30 seconds, to make sure. When I purge for a long time, I get 35g of extra weight after frothing. If I purge less, I end up with 45-50g. I am wondering if this is the last thing keeping me from pouring a decent cappuccino.

#2: Post by **Radio.YYZ** » March 18th, 2018, 9:17 pm

I had the latest version of silvia and i had the same problem. The steam was very wet, i finally gave up and got the profitec!

One thing i will say is that when i was doing my research i found that adding a PID to the silvia would solve a lot of temperature related issues with the machine, not to mention counting up and down before pulling a shot!

#3: Post by **vit** » March 19th, 2018, 7:24 am

On my EC 150 it's a kind of ok, milk gains 12-14% extra weight. However, I tweaked the thermostat to switch off 10-15°C higher (by inserting a 0.3mm piece of plastics between it and boiler). Machine has 0.2 l boiler and 1000 W heater

Anyway, in small boiler machines, it's important to purge enough steam so that water level is well below the top, to avoid too much water droplets produced by boiling entering the steam pipe. So my procedure on that machine is to switch to steam, wait until thermostat switch off, then partially open the steam until thermostat switches on again, purging the boiler about 2 min. Then I wait about 20 s more, briefly close the steam and start steaming. It's important to avoid the thermostat switching off again while steaming. Then I flush it and make a coffee

However, I rarely use it now - Bellman is considerably better, I heat it to 140-150°C and milk gains only 7-8% of weight - hotter the steam, less steam needed to heat the milk, hence less water in the milk

#4: Post by **ben8jam** » March 24th, 2018, 7:18 pm

Radio.YYZ wrote:I had the latest version of silvia and i had the same problem. The steam was very wet, i finally gave up and got the profitec!

One thing i will say is that when i was doing my research i found that adding a PID to the silvia would solve a lot of temperature related issues with the machine, not to mention counting up and down before pulling a shot!

Yup me too

#5: Post by **chuckcoffee** » March 25th, 2018, 10:37 am

I spent a lot of time working on improving steaming on the Silvia. It can deliver a tremendous amount of steam in a short period but will quickly run out so things need to be lined up perfectly. Here's my fishbone diagram (I was studying for my ASQ SSBB exam and would breakout to work on this, LOL)

So..
- get a PID, in the short term start steaming before the light has turned off
- run steam down steam wand so entire system is heated up
- play around with different tips-smaller dia
- replace steam knob with older ver2

;o)

#6: Post by **jpatrickramos** » March 25th, 2018, 11:55 am

chuckcoffee wrote: play around with different tips-smaller dia

Do you happen to have an easy button for this???

#7: Post by **chuckcoffee** » March 25th, 2018, 1:36 pm

LOL, nope

That's why this forum is here. On steam tips its sort of trial and error. I bought 3 or 4 different ones before this one. Current set point on steam with the PID is 140 C/284F and it comes out like a freight train so probably could be lower.

I had pretty good results with this one. There are others out there so have a look. Also having a good steaming picture helps. I use a Motta I got from Chris coffee and it works great.

Eating the coffee elephant

Motta Pitcher

#8: Post by **chuckcoffee** » March 25th, 2018, 3:24 pm

Oh, and one more variable on the Ishikawa diagram is milk. That's huge

I have tried probably at least 10 different milks and found the best consistency, density and ability to generate microfoam with a 3.25% microfiltered milk. I have tried organic, grass fed but settled on this one. Just depends on whats local in your area. You want to stabilize these other elements prior to trialing out different milk so make sure you set a standard practice. That's crucial with Silvia as you have to switch from the brew temp to boiler temp.

Lots of stuff on the forum on milk

#9: Post by **jpatrickramos** » March 25th, 2018, 11:11 pm

Thanks Chuck!

I "cheated" today and foamed some half-and-half and used five ounces of liquid in a larger pitcher for more swirling.
Stretched a lot better this time.

And then it dawned of me that I haven't had the local Strauss stuff in the glass bottles like I did back in California.

One bite at a time, indeed! Thanks again!

#10: Post by **jpatrickramos** » March 27th, 2018, 6:06 pm

Thanks to some feedback from a few members in this (and other) thread, I tried the following today with lots of improvement.

Full boiler.
PID steam temp set to 125c.
Purge for one minute.
Temps were then at 118c after that 60 second purge.
Brought temps back up to 125c. This took less than a minute to do.
Purged for two seconds.
Stretched/frothed/foamed four ounces (125g) of half-and-half.

Much better results.
10/10 will definitely repeat again.