I have long tried to get perfect milk for a perfect (is this ever possible?) cappuccino. It always seemed so easy to me, but I never quite manged to get the milk right. Well, as Silvia has a 1-hole steam tip, there is one little trick to get excellent mircofoam.

So, we are all (I mean, we coffee geeks) well aware of many tips for the ultimate microfoam, e.g. follow these instructions at CoffeeResearch.org or this one at CoffeeGeek.

However, to become perfect microfoam with Silvia, you have to change some parameters as compared to a heat exchanger machine:

• Where to place the steaming tip? This is actually crucial, especially for the expansion phase: Hold the pitcher slightly beveled and put the wand directly towards the edge of the pitcher, but make sure that the milk starts spinning while you do so. Place the wand to the middle of the pitcher – and you won’t get perfect results. Touch one wall and perform your milk expansion and you’ll be surprised by the result! After expansion sink the wand and start turbulating as usual.
• The milk stretching/expansion phase shouldn’t be too long – as a rule of thumb stop expansion phase at about body temperature (40 ºC or 100 ºF). The final spinning/swirling of the milk needs to be a bit longer (up to about 65 ºC or 150 ºF) with Silvia, as she is not as powerful as heat exchangers. Another reason is if you expand the stretching phase you also end up with too much foam.

Enjoy milk frothing with Miss Silvia!