What's the Difference Between Milk Foam and Milk? Why Can Milk Be Turned into Foam?

FrontStreet Coffee often says that although a latte doesn't taste better just because it has beautiful latte art, the existence of latte art can provide more experience for the coffee drinker, such as adding visual enjoyment! Therefore, many friends will practice day and night in order to create exquisite latte art.

But we need to know that creating beautiful latte art not only requires the barista to master latte art techniques, but the quality of the milk foam is also very important. Therefore, before we learn latte art skills, the more important thing is to learn how to froth milk foam for latte art! So, what kind of milk foam is most suitable for latte art?

1. Possessing Fluidity

When it comes to what kind of milk foam is most suitable for latte art, without thinking, it's definitely milk foam with fluidity! If we want to create more than just basic patterns like large hearts, then the milk foam must have high fluidity. To achieve this, we need to control the thickness of the milk foam, because the thicker the foam, the lower the fluidity; when the foam is thinner, the fluidity is higher.

However, being too thin won't work either. Because if the fluidity is too high, the patterns will easily float and become unstable during latte art creation, so we need to make it appropriately thicker. A thickness of about 1cm is sufficient. The thickness of milk foam is mainly determined by the amount/time of foaming during the milk frothing process. Although this is a principle that many friends understand, quite a few friends will uncontrollably perform multiple foaming operations during actual frothing. For example, suddenly hissing a couple of times during the texturing process to increase the thickness of the milk foam. Here, FrontStreet Coffee shares a small technique to control milk foam frothing: leverage!

We can find a fulcrum between the milk pitcher and the steam wand, using this fulcrum to secure the milk pitcher, so that during frothing, we don't need to rely on our own strength to stabilize the pitcher, naturally avoiding accidental foaming due to hand shaking.

2. Fine and Smooth

The fluidity of milk foam alone cannot enable you to create satisfactory patterns. If the foam is too coarse and separates from the milk too quickly, you still won't be able to create beautiful patterns!

This makes our milk foam texturing time very important! After foaming, we need to immerse the steam wand into the milk to form a vortex, allowing this vortex to use suction to draw in and cut those large bubbles into countless tiny bubbles. The longer we texture, the finer the bubbles become. The shorter the texturing time, the coarser the quality of the milk foam. How can we judge the quality of milk foam? Hey! This is simple. We can place the milk foam against backlight and see if it can reflect light like a mirror, whether it has a rich luster. If not, it means the foam particles are rather dry and coarse. In such cases, there's still a chance to salvage it, for example, by pouring between pitchers or shaking to eliminate coarse bubbles.

Then you just need to pay attention to extending the texturing time during the next milk foam frothing process. If the heating speed is too fast, causing the milk to reach the target temperature before the foam has time to become fine, we can lower the milk's starting temperature by refrigerating it or reducing the refrigeration temperature, thereby increasing the texturing time!

3. Not High "Moisture Content"

Although it's said to extend the texturing time, it can't be too long! Because heating milk foam mainly relies on water vapor, and its addition not only heats the milk but also dilutes it. If the frothing time is too long, it will add too much water to the milk, not only diluting the concentration but also making the foam more likely to atomize during the latte art process, leading to a "complete mess" like the picture below.

Layering can also cause "messy patterns" to occur. We can observe the milk foam that blends with the coffee. If it has sufficient fluidity but also shows atomization, it's very likely due to too much moisture (after all, layered foam doesn't have high fluidity). If it's a case of too much moisture, we can appropriately control the refrigeration temperature of the milk to shorten the texturing time, thereby reducing water's damage to the foam's stability.

So above, these are the conditions that FrontStreet Coffee believes milk foam suitable for latte art should possess: high fluidity, fine and smooth, and not high "moisture content"~ As for frothing techniques, interested friends can search directly in FrontStreet Coffee's official account~

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473