Top Three – Most Common Mistakes When Steaming Milk

Steaming milk is a tough skill...

to master for any new or intermediate barista.  For myself, I would go to work with a gallon of milk every weekend and be steaming milk alone in the shop through the morning.  This helped build my understanding for what it takes to master the skill, but that said, even I still mess up from time to time.  Especially under pressure at a latte art throwdown, or on a machine I'm not that familiar with.  That brings me to my newest video, and this one is for those who are steaming milk, but also working on consistency and understanding what is causing them issues.

As a trainer, and someone who is self-trained, I am very familiar with the top three most common mistakes when steaming milk.  The first is overstreatching, or understretching.  This is just a fancy term for either too thin, or too thick.  Neither is going to work, especially in a cafe setting when you are serving customers.  Next up us the temperature.  While you gain experience in knowing what certain temps feel like, pick up a thermometer and check yourself.  When the milk is too hot, it will burn. It will taste scorched, and you (or whoever drinks it) won't enjoy it.  On the other side you can go too cool.  That will just make a luke warm espresso drink, and that doesn't sound good to anyone.  Last but not least, make sure you use enough milk, but not too much.  Nothing worse than wasting an entire drink because you didn't have enough milk, or dumping out enough milk to make a second drink after you're done pouring.

Hit that video above and check out the visual and audio clues you need to know to avoid these common mistakes and up your steaming game, and if you're looking for a steaming tutorial, check this out.

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