A guide to foam.

If you've ever had a cappuccino like this, I think you'll probably agree with me: it's hard to drink that bubbly, fluffy cappuccino.

There are still bubbles in your foam a lot of times. A good way to get rid of these bubbles is to tap the flower cup on the workbench. Don't knock too many times so as not to cause too much foam.

So what makes a "real" cappuccino so enjoyable? Of course it's the skill of a barista. The skill of milking is not so easy. With some good advice and some practice, you will immediately impress your happy cappuccino lovers.

Let's start with a little guide.

If you are confused or do not concentrate enough when you foam, it is easy to cause the steam pipe to be above the overview of the milk rather than just below the surface of the water. The result is a spatter of milk and a large amount of foam. Of course you can still get a lot of foam in the flower cup, but it will taste bad.

Espresso machine

At present, all espresso machines sold in the market have steam pipes for foaming. Some manufacturers choose to add turbo nozzel to their steam pipe meals to assist their customers. If you have such a thing on your machine, please try to take it missing, because this tool is of no help to what we are going to do next.

Flower cup

It is better to have a stainless steel flower cup with a water outlet. You need a flower cup whose temperature can change with the milk, so that you can feel the temperature of the milk at any time without steaming it too hot. Stainless steel happens to have this characteristic. The outlet can help you when you pull flowers.

milk

Latte drinks bet that the fat content of my aunt's milk is basically around 3%. The less fat, the harder the foam. What you want is smooth foam (so forget the missing fat-free cappuccino).

About milk foam

The first thing to keep in mind when foaming is to stop when the temperature reaches the right point. The appropriate temperature refers to 55-65 °C, depending on your taste. Foaming for too long will condense the milk and change its taste (and the cappuccino will be too hot). Overheated milk can also make the foam too hard. Will there be differences in foam for many years? Here are some typical examples:

Blistering

Too hard

The hard foam looks stiff, and when you pour it into the coffee, it doesn't mix with the coffee, but accumulates in your coffee diet like fluffy whipped cream. If it had been played a little longer, it would have been layered, with 90% of the milk flowing and a thick hard foam lid floating on the bowl. When you pour it into the coffee, the milk will flow out of the flower cup first. You must scoop the foam into the coffee cup with a spoon.

Smooth

If you do everything right, when you pour it out, the milk looks smooth and creamy, a bit like pouring yogurt. Milk your espresso will assimilate perfectly together, and crema will color the profile of the milk to form a typical brown edge of cappuccino.

Milk that has been in great haste often makes hard foam. The bridge latch is to produce the right number and quality of milk foam in the flower cup at the correct temperature. To foam well, you need to know how quickly your machine heats up the amount of milk you want. A good advice is not to take less than two cappuccinos at a time when you start learning to foam.

Vapour

1. After the machine reaches the correct temperature, turn on the steam switch, put the water that will always exist in the steam pipe, and then turn off the steam switch.

two。 Put the nozzle under the milk profile and turn on the steam. If you turn on the steam when the nozzle is above the liquid level, you will get larger bubbles, and you have to make a quiet effort to disappear these bubbles.

3. Slowly get the nozzle to get the milk profile. Stop just as the nozzle is about to give an overview (stop just as it breaks the surface). When the air is sucked into the milk, you will hear a typical hissing sound. If you accidentally take the nozzle out of the water, the pressurized air will blow into the milk instead of into the milk, resulting in large bubbles.

4. At this stage, there is no doubt that your profile of milk has formed small and medium-sized bubbles. Now we will try to make them disappear. There is a whirlpool where the air blows into the milk. All the bubbles in the profile will be pulled into this whirlpool and disappear. It is still important to put the nozzle in the right place to avoid new bubbles.

5. Now you have a cup of texture made of tiny bubbles. Put your empty hand on the flower cup to feel the temperature of the infected milk. When the foam rises, you lower the steam pipe carefully so that it touches the milk. If you feel right about the amount of foam and the milk is not warm enough, you can lower the nozzle into the milk. Now the milk began to swirl. By doing so, the milk is evenly heated by steam. When your hands feel a little hot, connect the nozzle under the liquid surface and block the steam.

A good way to determine whether the milk is thick enough is to twist the flower cup and let the milk start to form a whirlpool. You have to make more cappuccinos to learn what milk should look like. But here are some suggestions:

You can also tilt the flower cup to see how thick the milk is in the outlet. Look at the following example:

Milk should not be too thick, because if it is too thick, it will not assimilate well with coffee.

Milk should look like you're pouring yogurt (it may sound like a strange example, but that's the way it is)

Slowly pour the milk. If it's easy to flow on the sidelines, just wait a few seconds. By expecting the air that has been blown into the milk to rise to the profile, the milk can be stratified and the foam floats on the diet. It's like what happens after the black beer is poured out. In order to get the correct cream characteristics, you need to blow the milk out of the whirlpool now to assimilate it. You may get a good cappuccino by doing this, but it may not be two.

Whirlpool and pour

All right, that's all the basic knowledge. It's time for you to take some time to practice and improve your skills.