Being a barista champion doesn't necessarily mean that someone is very keen about their latte art as the aspects according to which participants are judged in those competitions are various and not focused on the quality of the steamed milk, rather, they are about the presentation and the overall perception of the drink. In fact, in the WBC you are required to produce a milk beverage with at least one centimeter of foam on top which is certainly not a latte. I participated as a guest performer in the UAE regional championship last year and steamed for a latte irrespective of the rules

jb-0101 wrote:His style of steaming milk...

Hitting milk with steam is an easy (yet suboptimal) way of stretching milk. Yet it might be the only option with some machines/tips, I am not sure :^)
But it's still making the "fish fish" sound isn't it?

Another of Scottie: His steaming seems to be making the "fish fish" sound you say is the mark of the novice, just a little bit more than in the video with the Rocket.

Can you take (or show us) a video of someone steaming where the "fish fish" sound is absent so we can see (or hear) what you mean?

Like I said in a barista competition you are required to produce a centimeter of foam. Pay attention to how the judge uses a spoon mainly to judge the depth of foam. This is a cappuccino and when steaming for cappuccinos you should stretch more aggressively, meaning that you should hit the milk with steam, yet, you should finish doing that as early as possible to result in a creamy texture (for a cappuccino, that is).

I will modify my statement to make it more objective and to avoid irritation: "Hitting milk with steam stretches milk, but is not the best way to do so. Namely, the best steaming results can be obtained on some setups without making any harsh sounds".

Now to define what a sharp sound is, maybe it is anything beyond the sound of whipping or intermittent sucking.

Notice that most coffee subjects are a bit subjective, meaning that it is hard to dispute them in a formal way and consensus is not always guaranteed (unlike disputes in math or science). In this case, dispute can result from what I call a latte or a perfect latte, which is a definition you might not agree on in the first place. A good start is to relax a bit and try to benefit from the viewpoints of others while also challenging those viewpoints, which I understand is what you are trying to do which is good. I certainly agree that the greatest majority of baristas steam using some harsh sounds in the beginning, but I also would like to remind you that steaming milk is a very challenging skill, and that those who perfect it are celebrated for a reason... Namely because they are few, not the majority.

Besides, steaming great milk alone does not make you a great barista, as there are so many other parts of the puzzle of assembling the perfect beverage. Hence, you can indeed be a great barista and not be very keen about milk steaming. I am not a great barista but I am very keen about steaming milk and I am rarely satisfied with the results produced by me or others. I wish that this puts things in context and makes the discussion more fruitful.

orwa wrote:I will modify my statement to make it more objective and to avoid irritation ....

Notice that most coffee subjects are a bit subjective .... A good start is to relax a bit and try to benefit from the viewpoints of others while also challenging those viewpoints, which I understand is what you are trying to do which is good.

I am not a great barista but I am very keen about steaming milk and I am rarely satisfied with the results produced by me or others. I wish that this puts things in context and makes the discussion more fruitful.

Orwa:

Thanks for persisting in this discussion. But also please try and relax a bit too. I will start by saying I'm just beginning to get latte art, so I'm not an expert here. I do know good latte art, though, which is very common in San Francisco. You can't go to any of the better cafes and not see consistently great latte art. If you have read the whole thread you will see that some of us have found on our home gear the milk just doesn't stretch unless we incorporate air, which makes a harsh sound. Otherwise we just get hot milk. When one of us posted a video of Gwilym Davies it was to say there is more than one opinion on this, and he's well respected. I noted Davies had said it wasn't a good pour, which gives more credibility to his instruction that goes along with what we're finding necessary. One of us asked you to show us a video, which would help because we are curious. You also wrote that steaming isn't the best way to stretch milk. Can you please tell us what way is better? Again I'm asking because I'm curious. I've learned so much on these forums from people like you who offer suggestions.

Haha you're so nice and diplomatic, Gary! I am kind of unused to this attitude in these forums.

I would like to say I am no expert either. I have been a barista for only one year and there is yet so much for me to learn. I never said steaming wasn't the best way to steam milk I just thought that steaming could be carried out in a different manner not involving the emission of harsh sounds as we're used to in most places.

Scottie's video (the one I posted earlier with the profile) is the best example of this method of steaming. In case someone thinks there are harsh sounds in that video then maybe we're disagreeing about what constitutes a harsh sound. I think the steaming in that video is outstanding in the sense that there is no "explicit" initial stretching yet you can visibly observe a sudden, 30% expansion in the volume of the milk near the end.

I currently live in a place where good latte art is non existing (Dubai), hence I might be, despite of being a professional barista, less informed than hobbyists in America, I am not offended by the possibility. However, I like to emphasize that being able to pour a good rosetta or a heart is not enough of an indicator of the quality of the milk. An expert's eye go more into the detail in the leafs. It is not that common for me to encounter great latte art on YouTube though it is becoming more frequent nowadays. Unfortunately, the best pours on YouTube are not accompanied with steaming tutorial or instructions, and often the steaming process is not video taped. The following is an example of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJZwBxCGBTg

Ignore the drama in the video, but the latte art is breathtaking. I don't know if the type of milk those guys are using plays a role in the magnificence of the resulting foam.

Note that you can still produce visually appealing pours with some explicit stretching in the beginning as with this tutorial, in which I think the final pour shows excellent milk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RpZAuLnIgw

Yet I think milk steamed with no explicit stretching will acquire a better taste and a distinctive mouthfeel.

Thanks, Orwa.

What equipment are you using? That can make such a difference. I see you're using a La Pavoni Professional. Is that a pre-Millennium model without a pressurestat? I have one of those and it's very powerful. But then when I try to steam on the Elektra MCAL I'm borrowing from a fellow HBer, it's slower but still produces very good microfoam. Other home machines can be more difficult. Earlier in the thread a number of us spoke to this. On something like my Millennium Pavoni there's no ability to get microfoam without initial incorporation of air.

Good latte art, great latte art ... I'm still trying to get past the phase where the result is like a Rorschach test!

I'll check out the videos you've posted. Thanks! Okay. Just did. All of those examples are using professional equipment. Many of us don't have that steaming power available. BTW I occasionally see latte art that's the equivalent of the second one in the first video (terrible video with all that jumpiness) and the quality of what I see every day is usually better than in the second video.

Just a side note: The original steaming tip on the La Pavoni is useless. I am using an acorn-nut-based tip with three 0.9mm holes and a narrower dispersion angle, and only steam using a 12-oz pitcher. I steam on the Pavoni at a pressure of 1.8-1.9 bars.

I ordered an acorn nut with a larger center hole. Too large. Then took a butane torch, solder and iron to the original La Pavoni's tip and closed all but one of the three holes. An immediately pleasing change, although also something of an invariable tendency I've had for modifying every machine I've owned, never quite satisfied with performance. Silent being the first noticeable change in following a greater latitude for control.

Beyond which would be a hobbyist's viewpoint.

I steam latte for myself in a small perhaps 6-oz., narrow based glass, of course perfectly clear, that expands outwardly upwards into a cast twice the base diameter around its lip rim. Welded at two points to a metal band surrounding the base is one wire bent and formed for a handle to hold glass containing boiling at two junctures. Cold milk initially comprising a third the height of the heated glass, perhaps 2-oz., is steamed quickly to expand to occupy the remaining volume. Although a creamier texture is readily obtainable, I've no objections to more foam. Whereupon espresso is extracted for settling between the lower cream and upper foam, and a ceramic knife used to stir only the lower, two layers.

A residual to extracted crema stays somewhat coherent to the topmost foam, I suppose the reason, for at least a vestige resemblance initially intact over the few sips -- in what the coffee tastes, actually, apart from a lower realm neutered by lactose. Indeed. Sufficient reason for further subjecting any given impression to repeated test shots, strictly for the sake of empiricism.

orwa wrote:I am using an acorn-nut-based tip with three 0.9mm holes and a narrower dispersion angle, and only steam using a 12-oz pitcher. I steam on the Pavoni at a pressure of 1.8-1.9 bars.

If that is gauge pressure that's way up there, although perfectly do-able on a LP Pro (note: even the oldest Pro's had an easy-to-adjust pStat, and since they have a gauge one can easily switch off and brew at a low pressure and steam at a high pressure.) I think that high pressure might work well with your three holes, but for me (using a pre-M Pro) I'm doing OK at .9 -1.0 bar of gauge pressure and a single hole tip (slim/bullet from OE.) Here's a video by brooklynshot demonstrating that technique working pretty well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDK1XEF1iyE

My stretching technique is much like his, but he sure pours better than I do. More on Pavoni steaming and custom tips can be found at Milk Frothing / Steaming on La Pavoni Europiccola - Modified Steam Nozzle