how to heat/texture milk with your home espresso machine
You want to achieve silky smooth, creamy milk. You achieve this by A. stretching, B. creating a whirlpool like motion and C. heating the milk to no hotter than 65 degrees. Stretching the milk is the noise you here at the beginning of the vid and is caused by the steam tip (end of the steam arm/steam wand) sitting just below the surface of the milk and thus breaks the surface of the milk when you turn the steam wand on introducing air/steam into the milk. Allow this to happen for 1 – 10 seconds at the very beginning of the heating process, the exact amount of seconds you stretch for will depend on the pressure of your machine and the size of your jugs (milk jugs that is). (how long you stretch for will determine how thick the milk ends up, or in laymen’s terms how much froth you create. Once you have stretched your desired amount then ‘lift the jug’ immersing the tip further beneath the surface, far enough so that you will not break the surface again. (do not break the surface of the milk (stretching) after it is warm, this will cause big bubbles that you can’t get rid of) During the whole process hold the steam wand at an angle that causes the milk to spin in a whirlpool/vortex. Finally bring the milk to 65 degrees. And remember to purge the steam wand of excess water before heating your milk and then purge the steam wand of excess milk after you have heated your milk.
Based on the results, I know of no one who can do the milk better than you do, and yes I have always wanted to see how you do it. Thank you very much for taking the time to share this.
this really helps cuz you know, we all have one of those fancy machines in our kitchen rite?
he won the world latte art championships in 06…hes bound to
i think you spend too much money for a giotto. There are better machines for less. The expobar machines (domestic) are nice and a tad cheaper…how did you mod your gioto?
Expobar has crappy build quality and not as reliable. The other alternative is VBM Super Lever, very very strong steam but espresso quality probably not as good as the Giotto.
Can you please tell me what exactly the mod you mention is? I have a Giotto premium with a 2-hole tip and it is really hard to get microfroth.
the easiest and the cheapest way is to block one of the holes from inside with a toothpick.
Otherwise you can get proper tips with smaller holes from Chris coffee in the US, I think it was the NEW 2 holes Isomac tip, you’ll also need to get the 8mm to 10mm female to male converter
I heat my milk to 160 degrees, like Starbucks. : ) But then again I make mochas.
this is definitely not a home espresso machine..the difference in bars are quite important!
Are you so sure? Thats an E-61 single group machine, a “home” machine like the one I own.
how many bars does it have?i think i’ve seen max 15 in home machines,but here it seems much stronger
65 degrees centigrade = around 150 degrees fahrenheit. milk should be heated between 140 and 160, anything hotter than 160 and your milk is scalded.
This is a home machine, at 0:12 you see thee other side of the drip tray.
12bar you are thinking of is the boiler. The pressure used to steam is much different (1.5bar…ish)
15bar = 217 pounds per square inch
if he had 15 bar steaming im sure that milk would be on every wall in that room.
ok,thanks for the enlightment!!:)
Ok first off this is a domestic coffee machine. It is an E-61heat exchanger tanked (not plumbed in) machine. It doesn’t mater what the machine is for optimal espresso extraction you want the pump pressure to be set at 8.5-9.5 bars. What you are seeing in the video is not pump driven but simply steam escaping from a boiler (through a steam pipe) and it wouldn’t be higher then 1.3 bar.
hahahahaha “the exact amount of seconds you stretch for will depend on the size of your jugs (milk jugs that is).” classic ^^
Is it better to have wetter steam or dryer steam to texture milk?
Im pretty sure this is a ECM Giotto. not really a domestic. more like a semi commercial.
i finally got a Giotto, can I ask what part your talking about? for the steam wand?
thanks.
dryer steam.
I can’t post weblink in the comment section. It’s from Chirs coffee in the US. The parts you want are the “New” Isomac 2 Hole Steam Tip and Adaptor converts 8 mm female to 10 mm male, should be pretty easy to find. But do remember it will take twice to three times as long to steam the same amount of milk.