Never getting that thin stream

[u/MinaDarsh]

Edit: Video added in the comments.

Edit 2: Followed the tips given here and it seems to have brought some improvement. Aerated a little less which seems to take away a lot of the blobbiness, normally this would cause the milk to roll away when setting the art but with the tips applied this didn't seem to happen.

Tl;Dr: I'm using a Thermojet/block based machine instead of a boiler for steaming, even if steaming very wet foam, I never get a thin, non-blobby stream. I steam in a small pitcher, transfer to a larger one as quick as possible and pour my latte art. I wonder if this behaviour is typical for thermo-based machines or if I'm running into, well... A skill issue.

The details: Heya, a question that I have about how the milk behaves when coming from the pitcher; I seem to never be able to get a nice thin stream pouring out that when poured up high sinks easily and when poured close to the surface lays still right away, like so many of the really good latte artists seem to be able to do.

I'm wondering if something is wrong with my technique, or if I'm running into a machine limitation. First of all, I tried a few amounts of aeration, from too much air to barely enough to work with. Even when pushing for very thin, wet foam, I can't seem to get that beautiful thin stream that I've seen some latte artists pour with, that stream that makes putting down rosettes look easy. It's like a concentration of foam is always in front of the milk, but when setting the art, it drifts away sometimes so clearly I must be either on the too thin side or I still have too much turbulence in the cup.

When steaming milk I steam around 140-150 ml in a very small pitcher of 350 ml, then transfer to a 600 ml pitcher to do the pouring. This is done as quickly as possible after the steaming is done and the wand is cleaned and purged. Before steaming the milk I also do an extra purge to make sure there's no unnecessary extra water shot into the milk.

The machine that I'm using for this is a standalone Morning Dream (MD630) that uses, I believe, a thermojet (or thermoblock) rather than a boiler, pressure seems to be regulated by how often the pump pulses. This can be set on the device which is currently set to 90%, giving a nice quick froth without it being too much for me. I tried lowering the internal temperature from 260°C to 250°C (probably much higher than a boiler because of how this heating element works) as I understood from somewhere that too high a boiler temperature can also give trouble when steaming milk, but it didn't seem to do much. The milk itself is steamed to 54°C. (Device measures this with a laser thermometer from the wand and stops when this is reached.)

Lastly, maybe it's the milk? I'm using just regular whole milk from the grocery store, no UHT, no special barista milk, just whole milk.

I'm going to assume that this all is just layer 8 issue, so me. Though I did notice when steaming with a Profitec Go from a friend of mine that the steamed milk behaves so much differently. So yeah, I hope this info dump can perhaps lead to some pointers as to what I could try to address this issue that I'm having.

[u/Chemical-Extent-7308]

Youre still letting the milk sit for a very long time, ideally you have your shot ready and start pouring no more than 4 or 5 seconds after youre done. For this specific video the milk is also super thick if you have white blobs show up on the espresso from the first drop when you start integrating thats a no no

[u/MinaDarsh → u/Chemical-Extent-7308]

I have heard a lot of argument about this, to be honest, some say it makes or breaks a pour, others say it's not as much of a problem as a lot of people claim. In any case, I went and worked as quickly as possible, also poured over to the other pitcher as fast as possible, but without causing more bubbles. Working quicker may have had a positive impact, got better art this morning.

There's only the issue where my device just, as you can see, takes quite a long time to purge. So less than 5 seconds is simply not possible.

[u/throwaway19074368]

Post a video

[u/MinaDarsh → u/throwaway19074368]

https://reddit.com/link/p856f9d/video/eoo74yj1zvnh1/player

Here you go, only change that I made is that I've set the steam pressure to 65%, it does seem to help a little, but still not getting what I want exactly.

[u/jingneto → u/MinaDarsh]

You’re rotating your cup too soon.

[u/OMGFdave]

You're pouring backwards...if you do not have adequate milk flow momentum across the surface of your cup, milk has a tendency to get bunched up like a traffic jam...milk that is bunched doesn't adequately volumize, expand, spread, and shape/wrap, and your only place to put more milk is 'backwards' in hopes of moving what has become an immovable wall of bunched up milk pattern.

Here you poured way too much base too fast...trust that the milk WILL flow away from you to create a more finessed base.