Frothing Milk

Pig Cat

Pig Cat

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Suffolk
Well my Delonghi Magnifica bean-to-cup machine has a steam wand that I use for frothing milk. It's great for Lattes or Flat Whites. Not sure exactly what the drinks I produce are called but they're pretty tasty.

The only problem/concern I have is that it takes ages to froth about 300ml of milk to temperature. About a minute. Now that's way longer than when they do it in a coffee shop. I'm not planning to change my machine until it carks it, but I'd like some assurance that my situation is normal and that I can froth quicker with a different machine - Gaggio Classic for example.
 
300ml is a lot, I only use a small amount and the classic heats it quickly. That may be because it's less volume but I did notice an improvement when I did the steam wand mod. Have you tried heating it in 150ml batches?
 
A minute isn't too bad but the comparison isn't fair or reasonable, the machine in your local coffee shop is high capacity and will be producing hundreds of espresso drinks a day and cost thousands of pounds, I guess yours respectfully might be producing half dozen drinks at most and cost a few hundred pounds. Depending on the volume a Gaggia Classic should steam milk in about 30 seconds, my pro machine can do it in about 10 seconds but then a machine with a large boiler and high capacity takes at least thirty minutes to an hour to warm up so you takes ya pick.

You can probably speed things up by altering your technique a little, descale more often than the machine asks and make sure you purge the steam wand thoroughly and as mentioned use less milk.
 
Great advice. I don't feel so bad now as it sounds like my machine is doing its job fine. I'll go for less milk - I usually have a bit left after I've poured anyway. And also I won't leave the descaling until the machine tells me to which is every six weeks or so.
 
antdad said:
A minute isn't too bad but the comparison isn't fair or reasonable, the machine in your local coffee shop is high capacity and will be producing hundreds of espresso drinks a day and cost thousands of pounds, I guess yours respectfully might be producing half dozen drinks at most and cost a few hundred pounds. Depending on the volume a Gaggia Classic should steam milk in about 30 seconds, my pro machine can do it in about 10 seconds but then a machine with a large boiler and high capacity takes at least thirty minutes to an hour to warm up so you takes ya pick.

You can probably speed things up by altering your technique a little, descale more often than the machine asks and make sure you purge the steam wand thoroughly and as mentioned use less milk.
Click to expand...

+ 1 and amen to that. Not much you can do, as it is now ... but up grade :D
 
Yeah descale at least once a month. I notice on my office bean to cup the steaming ability is serious compromised by scale build up.

You want to foam milk with dry steam so purge the system for a couple or three seconds to remove any condensation falling into the milk.I have to ask the obvious but are you creating and maintaining a vortex when foaming? If you're not it'll take longer to get up to temp.
 
even my old £1200 jura bean to cup machine took about a minute (sometimes more) to steam a moderate amount of milk. They are designed with pretty small boilers in them to make space for the automated gubbins inside.

The move to a gaggia classic was revalatory, even from such a small boiler, the difference in steam power is remarkable and im down to about 30-40 seconds to steam enough milk for two drinks.

Its only when you get to dual boiler beasts like the rockets and francinos of this world that you're getting down to 20-30 seconds
 
Cool. OK yeah I'll check my technique and make the first of the month descaling day, though the memory of my acidic coffee is still hanging around.... :s
 
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