The technique involves infusing the right amount of air and steam at the right pace to ‘stretch’ the milk, ultimately resulting in that wet paint texture that can be used in latte art, if you’ve got the skillz. You rest the tip of the steam wand on the surface of the milk and ‘ride’ it as the milk is slowly expanding with tiny air bubbles and coming up to temperature via the machine’s steam. You’ve got to keep a steady roll going, the bubbles to a minimum and eventually you’ll submerge the wand completely once you’ve achieved the amount of foam you want and need to simply bring it up to temperature.

Achieving good results is part skill and part equipment: Sustained dry steam that is served up from the boilers of large commercial espresso machines make the creation of microfoam a little bit easier. Also, the milk’s consistency (how much fat it has), age and temperature definitely play a part — you always want your milk to be cooled in the refrigerator until right before steaming in a pre-chilled pitcher.

So, yeah, there are a lot of elements — part art, part science — to keep in check when attempting to produce that lovely shaving-cream like texture. Understandably, many people that don’t want to make a career out of their espresso creation just don’t want to put in the time to learn how to do this.

In answer to their frustrations, several manufacturers over the years started to release adapters on their steam wands — called panarellos, auto-frothers, froth enhancement systems, the great fluff n’ stuff (okay, maybe not that one, but it could be) or any variation thereof — designed to simultaneously infuse a small amount of air with the steam so you don’t have to do a thing. Some of them do it better than others, and you end up with everything from super spongy meringue-like foam to nearly microfoam quality, depending on how the manufacturer designed the adapter. And even if you’re getting big bubbles and not the silky, dense foam you’re looking for, with a little bit of work (scraping off the top layer, spinning the milk around in the pitcher and tamping it from the bottom to burst larger bubbles, etc.), you can often get a suitable consistency.

You most often see panarellos and their like on the lower end machines that don’t have a lot of steaming power available (smaller boilers) so try to maximize the frothing potential by infusing more air into the milk. This can be good or bad, depending on what you’re trying to achieve, and occasionally you can adapt the wand to function more like a standard steam wand if you find the panarello action is not working for you.

People seem to either really love or really hate panarellos and we’re mixed about them; we have seen good and bad versions and so we don’t just dismiss them out of hand. In fact, more high tech versions are often deployed on high end commercial machines to facilitate efficient and consistent foam. So it’s not that systems that infuse air and steam without the operator’s assistance are essentially bad, but — like with most things to do with espresso machines — you get what you pay for.

Most importantly, know what you’re getting into. The majority of semi-automatic machines under $500 have these adapters on them, and nearly all superautomatics employ some form of this technology. So if you’d like to pick up a machine in one of these classes, you’ll need to either learn to love or learn to work around it.

1. To ineffectively swat at flies, yet one day you accidentally killed one and couldn’t bear to keep the gut-stained book around.
2. To prop up the uneven handmade bookshelf lovingly made by a friend/parent/spouse/sibling/child that never sits right on the wood floor.
3. To start a fire in the fireplace to enjoy while sipping on a delicious glass of chai spiced wine. (Guilty!)

Or, maybe you just recycled it by accident. Whatever the case, the fact of the matter is that now you have no wisdom to guide you. We created our manufacturer manual repository over at Brown Bean to connect you with the source code. We have manuals for a lot of models both current and historical, so if you’re looking for tips on how to perform maintenance or need to find out what that error code means, check ‘em out.

Don’t see your model there? Leave a comment here and we’ll see if we can’t track it down and add it to the repository.

This month, we talk about the different functional types of espresso machines, include a recipe for Indochine Lemon, point you to our manufacturer manual resource on Brown Bean and introduce you to a few new products we have in the store. What you won’t see, however, is The Grind Special, which is for subscriber-eyes-only. Sign up to get that little bit o’ goodness every month.

• Manual/Lever: With these machines, you are the pump. You grind, tamp and control the pressure during the extraction. You also manage the whole steaming process.
• Semi-Automatic: Semi-automatics have 15 – 17 BAR pumps involved, which will settle down to about 9 BARs of pressure if your grind/tamp is accurate. You will grind & tamp, then initiate the shot on and off. Steaming is also up to you.
• Automatic: Still grinding, tamping and steaming on your own, but you can program these machines to dose out a specific amount of water, so it will automatically end the shot.
• Pressurized Portafilters: Automatic and semi-automatic machines can have a variation that includes a pressurized porftafilter. This makes the machine a little bit easier to use because you don’t have to be super particular about your grind and tamp.
• Pod-Friendly: Another variation of semi-automatic and automatic machines are those that allow you to use what is basically a ground coffee version of a tea bag. These single serving pods make for easy, mess-free brewing.
• Superautomatic: These machines manage the whole grind and tamp process for you, but on most of them you will still be required to steam your milk. Some of them (usually called ‘One Touch’) provide automated frothing and shot extraction into your cup at the touch of the button; others have an automated frothing system that will froth the milk separately and you can pour it into the cup after it’s automatically extracted.
• Capsule: Probably the most simple machine in terms of materials and labor, these guys use a proprietary capsule filled with pre-ground coffee and extract it at the touch of a button — no grinding and tamping. Some of them have automatic frothing options.

We asked Gail to talk to us about these different machines, why someone would want to buy a specific type and why perhaps they wouldn’t want to buy it. Hopefully, this video will function as a good primer for learning the basic functional differences and help you as you research which machine best suits your needs.

Watch Gail as she discusses the Platinum Vogue, Swing, Swing Up and Vision, describing their interface and feature differences and then shows us how to make a latte.

It’s not super sophisticated, but it will reduce the hardness of your water and, in turn, how fast it takes scale to build up in your boiler and related waterworks. You can recharge it by putting it in a glass with water with a few tablespoons of non-iodized and additive-free salt (like kosher) and let it hang out once a week.