Someone got me one of those little battery operated milk frothers. I know it can work because some days I get lovely froth out of it. Then on other days I just get slightly bubbly flat milk.
What I do is I put a bit of milk in a big mug and blitz it in the the microwave till it is lukewarm. Then I apply the little whirring thingy, which I basically just stick in there or move up an down a bit if nothing’s happening. How can I make this work all the time? Should I being doing something more specific? Heat the milk more? Less?
Is there some secret free-mason like society of people who can make good cappuccino and are under oath not to tell. Some cappuccino omerta, perhaps? Or will someone enlighten me?
I was inducted into the Cappuccinioso this Christmas.
My brother was staying, and he’d been taught by a guy specially flown in to London by Lavazzo to the café where he worked. So he taught me and now I can make truly kick-ass cappuccino froth. Unfortunately this was with a steam jet, not a frothing thingummy.
I do have an electric frother, though. I found that the milk seems to froth better when it’s cold, and also using a small metal jug seems to keep it frothy for longer. Also, low-fat milk seems froth better.
With the steamer, the trick is only to raise the jet out of the milk by about an 1/8th of an inch and then plunge it back in again very quickly, over and over again. So I’m wondering if you put the frothing head just at the surface of the milk (trying not to spray yourself) whether it would be more successful.
And then once you pour the froth into the coffee, since it’s cold, you’ll need to zap the entire thing in the microwave.
one variable that you don’t have control over is the milk - in the winter, cows are fed on silage etc rather than grass and some people believe that this gives a lower quality milk. Also, the milk has to ve as fresh as possible if you want to get a good froth.
I worked at a little coffee shop for a few years, and I got to use almost every device ever created to froth milk. We had steam wands, both built-in and standalone, electric whips, hand powered whips, and some weird Japanese thing that I think used ultrasound or something. In short: It can be done with the electric whip-type devices, but it’s hard. I never got the knack of it. Sure, I could make it work, but maybe only one time in three tries.
The best way to froth milk (that I found, anyway - there are others that might be better or worse) is to start with cold milk in a steel pitcher and use a steam wand. You have to clear the wand by letting it run for a few seconds, before plunging it all the way to the bottom of the milk. When the bottom of the pitcher is almost too hot to handle, pull the wand up (or the pitcher back) until it sits just below the surface of the milk - but don’t let the steam break above the surface. Just let it sit there, don’t move it up or down, and in a few more seconds you should have hot, frothed milk.
Oddly enough, I always had a problem frothing skim milk - it seemed to me that the bubbles created were too big, and would rise up to the top and break. At the other end of the spectrum, I had a hard time not frothing half and half, and the one time I frothed butterilk (don’t ask), it almost overflowed the pitcher.
If you can find one, get a real espresso machine with a steam wand - preferably one that uses 220 volts. Those seem to recover a lot quicker than the 110 volt models. Or go support your local coffee shop. </shameless plug>
