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It’s super exciting owning your own coffee machine, but figuring out how to steam milk can be a real trial and error endeavour, and as fun as that experimentation can be, most of us just want our damn good morning coffee. So I have tried to compile all my knowledge of steaming milk and condense it into 5 tips for you to use to get you on your way to becoming milk pros!

When we talk about steaming milk, there are a few points to really consider in helping you. The ultimate goal is to produce a beautifully textured and creamy product that mixes well with your espresso shot. If your milk texture is too thick and bubbly, it will feel more like you are eating your frothy concoction rather than drinking a smooth liquid. You also don’t want to cook your milk so hot that you have to leave it for 20 minutes before it’s drinkable.

All of the tips and tricks I am discussing here are transferable across all alternative milks as well. One difference, however, is in relation to temperature, such as how almond milk does not need to be heated as much as cows milk to avoid an added bitterness. Test it out and see what best suits your palate. You can always e-mail us below for further questions.

So here are some things to look out for:

1.    First things first- fresh is best. Re-steaming milk won’t act as a simple reheat. It will continue to cook and burn the milk, giving your coffee a strange, burnt or bitter flavour.

2.    Temperature. The temperature of your milk is very important. If the milk is heated too much, the proteins in the milk go through a change that is not fixed by simply cooling it down again. This is referring to the denaturing of proteins. The fats in full cream milk also undergo a physical change in chemical composition when heated well past 70degrees. In a cafe, your barista is aiming to heat the milk to somewhere between 60-65degrees and 70degrees for extra hot. 

The temperature of the milk can also be your best friend in adjusting your final foam level, but I will delve into that in more detail later. 

When steaming your milk, place your dominant hand around the jug. Avoid putting it underneath the base of the jug as this will not be as accurate of a gauge for the temperature. You will feel the temperature of the milk heat up on your palm as you are steaming. You’re indicator for the right temperature will happen when you cannot hold the jug for 3 consecutive seconds. That’s you’re signal to turn off the steam wand. For extra hot drinkers, continue steaming for an extra 1-3 seconds depending on your jug size (another tip for you extra hot drinkers: pre heat your mug before pouring in the espresso and milk so the glass or ceramic doesn’t leach out the heat). A great way of truly measuring your milk temperature is to use a thermometer (we have them online if you need it). You can use it to train your hand and perception of heat until you feel comfortable working without it.

3.    The volume of milk you use. The amount of milk you use in the pitcher or jug can either make your life a walk in the park or a walk over needles. When first learning, you should fill the pitcher somewhere between the bottom of the spout and 1cm above the bottom of the spout. Under filling your pitcher may cause your milk to spin wildly out of control and it may turn out super bubbly. It will also heat up very quickly. Over fill your jug too much, and you may find the milk ending up on your bench instead of in your coffee before it’s even warm! If you need to under or over fill your pitcher to cater for your cup size, consider a different sized jug.

4.    Foaming your milk. This is a longer point as it is often one that people struggle with the most when learning. Foaming the milk is what determines whether you are drinking a flat white, cappuccino or a babycino. It is not an easy thing to master and certainly takes a lot of practice due to the mass amount of variables that go into foaming your milk, but I shall try simplify it so it is easier to understand. 

Foaming the milk, or texturing the milk, is the process of adding air into the liquid, thickening it up to mix into the espresso shot. The more air you add to the milk, the thicker it becomes. No air for flat whites, lots of air for cappuccinos. The addition of air occurs when you hear the ‘tssk tssk’ sound coming from your pitcher and steam wand, and it is this sound that will become one of your best friends in foaming milk. You make this sound by lowering the pitcher slightly whilst steaming so that the air holes on the steam wand are just - only JUST - above the milk and open to the air. When determining how much air you wish to add, this can come down to trial and error. Unfortunately I cannot provide you a number of seconds to count, as each jug size is different and each coffee machine is different with different steam wand pressures, but I can give a few tips to help you figure it out for yourself. 

My first tip is in relation to temperature. For a smooth, creamy milk texture with microfoam (when the bubbles added are so fine you can barely see them, and the foam has a creamy raw meringue texture), all the air should be added before the milk temperature hits around 38degrees. I call this hand temperature. Pay attention to your milk temperature in the initial stages of heating. You will notice a point when the jug switches from feeling cold to feeling warm. Right in the middle, there is a microsecond moment where you can’t feel the temperature. This is because it is the same temperature as your hand. Once you have hit this point, and the jug suddenly feels warm rather than cold, stop adding air. 

The final stages of heating the milk from here on should focus on mixing the added air into the liquid. This is how we make the milk taste creamy. If you were to add air into the milk when the milk is hot, a couple of things happen. 1. The milk does not have enough time to mix everything in the jug together, often causing large bubbles and froth that separates from the liquid. 2. The texture of the milk may end up too thick and bubbly, more towards the babycino side of froth rather than foam. 3. Consider you are adding air for the full duration of the steaming process – there will be so much air added into the milk that you’re coffee will be so incredibly thick, you will need to spoon it down rather than sip. Of course - for my frothy coffee lovers – by all means, aerate away.

Another friend of yours will be sound. You may have noticed that sometimes your steam wand and milk will screech at you. It’s not the nicest of sounds. When the screeching sounds, one of two things are happening in your milk: 1. The overall milk temperature is too hot, or 2. There is no air in the milk. Even for flat whites in the cafe, we add a couple of ‘tssk’s of air to help avoid this sound. It won’t add too much foam and will certainly sound more pleasant to steam.

5.    Finally – the spin. Spinning the milk acts to mix the liquid and the air together, as I have mentioned above. A controlled spin of the milk in the jug helps to create that creamy texture and reduces your chance of accidentally adding more air. The alternative to spinning the milk is folding the milk, which is much less controllable and often leaves spillages on the floor and bench. 

To achieve the spin, I suggest lining up your steam wand in line with your body before you start. Place the wand tip in the centre of your jug, with the holes only just submerged beneath the milk. Then, tilt your jug on an angle about 20degress to the right or left (whatever is most comfortable for you). By angling the wand in relation to the jug like this, you are telling the steam to spin around the edges of the jug as opposed to straight down the middle. This should create your spin for you without you needing to move a muscle.

So there are my few little tips on steaming milk at home to create that milky texture you experience in a cafe. If you have any questions or need further explanation on any of these points, please don’t hesitate to ask! We love it when you ask questions!

Home brewed coffee is a very convenient way to get your fix, especially if you don’t live near a good café, and it is becoming more and more popular with all the different methods and training available out there. But with so much variety in coffee out there for you to purchase, it can sometimes become very confusing to keep up with new recipes and brew suggestions if you suddenly change what coffee you buy. So how do you know what to do with your coffee if suddenly the flavour just isn’t right? These few little points will help you figure out what to do at home to create the flavour you most enjoy without needing to buy a whole new bag of beans.

Firstly, let’s establish what it is you don’t like about the coffee you are drinking. Is the flavour too strong or is it too weak? Is it too sour (or acidic) or is it just bland and watery? Is the coffee too bitter? Does it leave a dryness in your mouth when you sip it or does it leave an unpleasant aftertaste? The answers to these questions provide very strong clues as to how your coffee is behaving and what moves you should make to counteract these flavours.

Generally speaking, if the coffee flavour is not perfect, then it is one of two things: it is either OVER EXTRACTED or it is UNDER EXTRACTED. Let’s talk extreme differences here. The over extracted coffee will taste: strong, bitter, intense and very out of balance with a yucky aftertaste. You may need to add an extra sugar or two to remove that intensity. The under extracted coffee will taste: weak, watery, perhaps flavourless and you are wanting more to come out of the coffee.

But why does over extracting and under extracting the coffee create these differences?

Let’s think back to high school science when we learnt about the surface area to volume ratio. If the ground coffee is fairly coarse and the grains are large like sand, then there is a small surface area to volume ratio. There is a lot of coffee inside the ground pieces that must be extracted through the surface of that grind into the water. This means that if you have very coarse coffee grinds, then you must allow a long period of time for the coffee flavour and oils to be extracted into the water for you to drink. Conversely, if the ground coffee is fairly fine and the grains are more like a powder, then there is a large surface area to volume ratio. There is not a lot of coffee inside the ground pieces that need extracting and so it does not take long for the water to take out the flavour and the oils for you to drink.

So how do you fix this? There are a few different ways to do so and depending on what is available to you, you can muck around with these variables until you find that sweet spot.

GRIND SIZE

As a specialty coffee team, we will try and encourage you to grind your coffee to order, but we also understand that sometimes it is just too hard or too expensive to have your own grinder when you don’t make that much coffee at home. So buying your coffee and pre grinding it makes a lot of sense.

When grinding your own coffee, adjust the blades in very small increments to find the grind size that you need. It may take a few rounds of testing, but with patience you will find the right spot. If the brewed coffee is:

UNDER EXTRACTED – make the grind finer

OVER EXTRACTED – make the grind coarser

If you are grinding the whole bag when you buy it from your local café, ask the staff to alter their usual grind setting for you. Describe what you’re tasting and they should know how to fix it for you.

ALTER YOUR TIME

Sometimes, your coffee is simply over extracted because you left it to brew for too long! Compare it to tea – leave the bag in the water that extra minute and the tea is suddenly too tart or too bitter or too strong. Same deal with coffee. Try adjust your brew time to compensate for your over or under extracted coffee.

ADJUST YOUR RECIPE

One other way your coffee may taste over or under extracted is because you haven’t put in the correct amount of coffee to your water volume. Again, compare it to tea – if you put in teaspoon of tea leaves to a litre of water, you are not going to pull out much flavour. If you put in a cup of tea leaves to 200mL of water, you might as well be making a syrup.

You can always ask your Coffee Brothers and Sisters or coffee supplier for any recommended ratios when brewing coffee, but trust your own judgements and your own tastebuds. If it is tasting too strong, perhaps put less coffee in the water to brew. Alternatively, if it is too weak, increase the amount of coffee. Often it will not need to be a big adjustment. When we brew coffee at the café and need to adjust the ratio, we may simply alter the recipe from 6grams of coffee per 100mL of water to 6.5grams of coffee per 100mL of water. This can make all the difference.

When experimenting with your brew method, be sure to remember your adjustments so you can nail your coffee next time you go to brew it.

Hopefully these few little short tips will be enough to help you nail your home brews. Feel free to let us know how you go.