I'm looking for some advice on what steam tip would work best with my astoria fiore 2 group commercial lever machine. The machine comes with a 5 hole steam tip and that thing is INSANE! I haven't tried, but I bet I would even have trouble steaming 20+ oz of milk.

Here is the problem: The steam is either too strong or too weak no matter what tip I use. Here are the tips I have tried.

5 hole tip with the center hole plugged: still pretty darn intense and impossible to steam anything drinkable.

4 hole tip that came with replacement steam arm:



It's a "boxy" type design and is still way too strong. I plugged one of the holes and it's the perfect velocity... but having one hole plugged, all 3 holes are on one side and the vortex is hard to maintain and it spins the milk way too aggressively.

A 2 hole steam tip from espresso parts :



This tip creates some of the best microfoam I have ever seen/tasted. It's perfect. The problem is that it takes about 50-60sec to steam 6-10oz of milk. That's WAY too long for my needs. Would making these holes larger with a drill solve my problem? I would imagine it would but don't have access to the tools at this moment (I can easily get access to the tools to do this).

So my question is; what's the best steam tip on the market for this machine? I'm having trouble finding a 3 hole tip and most are 4-5 hole and very similar.

My pressure is set to cycle from .8-1.0 bar.

Maybe boost the pressure to 1.1-1.3 and see what happens with the 2 hole tip. Might cut your steam time in half and till nice the great microfoam. Worth a shot.

I will try this for sure. I like the temp and preinfusion pressure that the .8-1.0 pressure gives me.... it allows me to "surf" to any temperature easily without overshooting when doing back to back shots. Sitting on the counter at home I find myself doing coffees back to back that require different temperatures. My first shot is usually our blend, which likes a lower temp. I follow that with a lighter SO that likes higher temps. This makes that easier (temp strips on the group help a lot here). One of my favorite things about the lever is the ability to adjust temperature on the fly.

I'll adjust the pressure a little higher and see how it goes.