I use the steam wand for all kinds of things, and was wondering what other people use their espresso machines for when it's not pulling shots...

Hats: Today I was blocking/shaping some wool fedora hats, and used the steam extensively for that process.
Jewelry: Wife likes to use the steam to clean jewelry, all the stuff that gets into crevices blasts away with the steam.
Sterilization Sanitizing: I steam sterilize sanitize bottles before bottling things like simple syrup, also some brewing equipment from time to time gets a steam sterilization sanitized.
InstaMorph: Polymorph plastic melting and shaping for various things and I use both steam and hot water for that.
Steam cleaning small parts: Anything that needs to be stripped down to bare metal, and it will dry fast once it's hot.

The espresso machine truly is a multi-tasker!
Haven't found the grinder to be such a multi-tasker, but I guess if I liked "spiced" coffee I could start grinding spices in there - not gonna happen though!

Hmmm. Hadn't thought of all of these. I guess some use the hot water for tea. And I've heard something about poaching eggs. Is that even possible?

I need to learn to block hats Or perhaps buy another used wine barrel for barrel stave straightening.

I've always wanted to pull some shots of freshly ground spices. I could imagine the flavors you could extract would be amazing.

But there's no way I'm doing it with my equipment.

JB

Bodka Coffee wrote:Hmmm. Hadn't thought of all of these, I've heard something about poaching eggs. Is that even possible?

Barista at a coffee shop I frequented made eggs for me with the steam wand. Broke eggs into a milk pitcher and submerged the wand into the pitcher for a minute or two. Stuffed a croissant with the eggs. It was very good!

Using a Slayer for extracting spice would be nasty. Maybe an inexpensive Delonghi would do?
Thought about the same thing yesterday. caffeinated minds think alike.

Chert wrote:I need to learn to block hats Or perhaps buy another used wine barrel for barrel stave straightening.

How did your barrel stave steaming go? That's alot of steam!

I just received some mail order hats that I wanted to change the crown on, and found the Strega's steam wand worked great. Angle could be better, but it had good, sustained steam with a nice toggle on and off. It's definitely better than a tea kettle over a gas stove when it comes to steaming a hat.
A decent intro to hat blocking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHOYh5lgL28

Steam steriization does not sound likely to me, pls be careful with that as you typically need high pressure steam to accomplish sterilization in a short period OR you need extended exposure...(though syrup will likely not propagate much growth, if the sugar content is higb enough the only thing it will grow is weight)

My LaPavoni Pro makes a lovely table decoration when not in use...

Marcelnl wrote:Steam steriization does not sound likely to me, pls be careful with that as you typically need high pressure steam to accomplish sterilization in a short period OR you need extended exposure...(though syrup will likely not propagate much growth, if the sugar content is higb enough the only thing it will grow is weight)

Okay, the proper word I should have used is sanitize, or kill 99.9999% of all living creatures in my bottle.
I think that heat in excess of BOILING water sustained for about 15 seconds after bottle bottle is hot in a 360ml container will *SANITIZE* quite nicely. Bottle exterior usually hits about boiling temp at that stage as any water dropped on the outside will instantly evaporate away. Bottles are left to cool slightly and then near boiling temp syrup is poured and capped, ready for shelf storage.

Simple syrup will mold in an unsanitized bottle, as we've had the issue twice. Since I steam the bottles they are as sanitary as boiling them and I can keep the labels on the outside of the bottle (sake labels), and no issues with mold in the 1.5 years I've been doing this now. Spray sanitizer, Star-San, would probably also work, but I like the steam method as it adds nothing to my syrup.