Steamed by steaming pitcher

[chas]

You may have seen this new pitcher design for sale on a number of coffee websites. Don't waste your money. The only thing properly steamed will be you for parting with your hard earned money. I bought one. After a couple of weeks giving it a fair try, it is now on display with my pitcher and tamper collections.

It has one obvious flaw which is pitched as its benefit - the rubber insulated body. Most of us use the temperature of the pitcher sides to tell when the milk is hot enough, rather than using a thermometer. You can't do that. You can only touch the bottom which gets hot faster than the sides.

If this was the only flaw you could make adjustments. However, the fatal flaw is the spout and the fact that it actually sticks up above the edge of the pitcher. Depending on how fast you pour milk, it either spills over the side edges of the spout or it spins as it exits the spout. The spinning motion ruins any attempts to create latte art.

No handle and no latte art either!!!

nohandlepitcher.jpg (3.45 KiB) Viewed 15826 times

[JohnB]

Thanks for the heads up. I recently bought a 16oz Motta pitcher from CC: http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/hom ... ngpitchers Highly recommended if you don't already have a Motta collection. Both my 12 & 20oz Pro Barrista pitchers have been retired from active duty.

[Bushrod]

I love my Motta 12 and Motta 16!

[David23]

Thanks for the heads up. I recently bought a 16oz Motta pitcher from CC: http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/hom ... ngpitchers Highly recommended if you don't already have a Motta collection. Both my 12 & 20oz Pro Barrista pitchers have been retired from active duty.

It looks from the photos that the Motta pitchers have a slightly more rounded spout than the Pro Barista pitchers. Is that true, and does it actually work better than the PB pitchers for pouring latte art? I'm ready to buy a smaller (than my PB 20z.) pitcher, and wonder what to get.

[JohnB]

The pouring spout is more rounded & the lower portion of the pitcher is quite a bit different from PB. Much heavier, better looking & I think it works better overall then the PBs.

[oton]

The S1 problem to make good milk for latte art can not be "too much power". I'm tired of watching videos of Synessos doing excellent microfoam in ten seconds... less time than it takes to me to steaming the same milk.

For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcoizZBmths

How's possible? What's the problem?

[Endo]

The Vivaldi's strength is it makes two-phase cappuccino style macrofoam very fast. I suspect this is the way they designed it.The down side is, it makes rather poor microfoam for latte art or flat whites compared to other machines.

I've tried every tip possible (and created several custom ones as well) and I think I've pretty much ruled out the tip as the problem. I've also played around with dropping the steam boiler pressure (by turning off the boiler heater and bleeding steam to drop the starting pressure to 1 bar). That doesn't improve things either.

Perhaps it has something to do with what they sometimes refer to as "wet steam".

If it helps, it seems I've gotten the best success by choosing the milk volume carefully, stretching for a very short time (less than 5 seconds) and using a small 12 oz pitcher with angled sides rather than the typical straight sides (to optimize the roll and get better mixing of the macro-bubbles). Even then, I get a good rosetta only about 50% of the time.

Oh well. Keeps me challenged at least. When I occasionally get a chance behind a Synesso, I look like a pro!

[JohnB]

If the Synesso is set up like the Speedster it is running a much higher boiler pressure then the S1. Kees ships the Speedsters with the steam boiler set to 2.3b which gives you some serious power with a 3.5 ltr boiler. I tried a number of different settings between 1.4b-2.3b & settled on 2.1b as my favorite.

[Endo]

Kees ships the Speedsters with the steam boiler set to 2.3b which gives you some serious power with a 3.5 ltr boiler.

Interesting.

I didn't think of trying a higher pressure. Perhaps that would produce a better steam quality, the so-called "dry steam"?

Actually, I'm not even sure I could safely do it on the S1 (Although I'm pretty sure the steam boiler could easily take 2b). Anybody know what the steam boiler OPV is set to? I suppose I could do some mod to the steam boiler temp probe.

Perhaps someone can tell me.....is the thermastat on the steam boiler simply a "hi limit" safety (rated to 165C I assume). I guess the OPV on the steam boiler is a secondary safety device. The actual steam boiler temp and pressure is controlled through the temp probe I assume (for reduced deadband and less pressure fluctuation between cycles). If this is the case, then I suppose the logic could be modified to allow the steam pressure to be made adjustable through the buttons (just like the temp on the brew boiler).

If this is the way it works, I assume if I insulated the steam probe and stayed below the 165C hi limit, I could raise the steam pressure.

[JohnB]

Don't know but the Speedster uses a commercial grade 3 bar pressure valve & I assume the Synesso has something similar. Better find out what the limits are on the valve in the Mini before trying to raise the pressure.