Steam wand tip

[Riley Pierce]

I'm running into trouble when steaming milk. It seems when I pour from the pitcher into my espresso, I get milk, just enough microfoam to tease me, and then thick cappuccino foam. This isn't what I want if my goal is to make lattes. I had a trained barista try using my machine, and she couldn't get microfoam, either. She said she couldn't seem to find the proper tearing sound.

I'm now leaning away from operator error and suspecting this may be hardware related. Someone suggested, given the age of the C85, that the steam wand might have been optimized for cappuccinos, since lattes and latte art weren't really in fashion back then. I'm also wondering if I'm having a scale problem and need to descale the wand.

Any advice? I'd gladly replace the wand tip or the whole wand if it'd be likely to help.

Cheers,
Riley

[Scott Jones]

Hi Riley,

I have the duo compact from the mid 90's. When I started using it three years ago, the steam pressure was 1.5 bars. The factory steam tip had four holes, on the larger size. I could get microfoam with a larger pitcher but it was hard. With the smaller pitcher, there was no room for error. 

This is what I did to slow it down. I adjusted the steam pressure down to .8 bars. I believe there's a yellow cap over a screw on the ride hand side of the machine. You have to lift off the top to get to this. You turn the screw one way or the other while watching the dial for steam pressure. The steam pressure is the top dial on the front. This was better adjustment made things better.

The second thing I did was to buy a tip with smaller holes. But I still wanted more. So I found a tip with the thread for Faema and the hole configuration of a stock LaMarzocca Linea. 

This definitely helped make the small pitcher more viable. Even before I made all these changes, several of my barista friends could get nice microfoam. But it wasn't easy. Also, four hole tips use a different technique than one hole tips. What are you used to using?

Scott Jones

[frank]

Hi Riley,

I also had trouble steaming smaller pitchers of milk with the stock tip. I switched to this two hole tip and can get good microfoam for a single latte now. I doubt it's a scale problem unless you're getting very little steam through the wand. How large is your pitcher and how long does it take you to steam it?

https://www.espressoparts.com/products/ep-hq-classic-two-hole-steam-tip

Frank