> My vendor explained to me that raising the pressure is largely > unnecessary, because all it does is speed up the process.
Having a double boiler machine is also unnecessary, it just makes better espresso. :) Just poking a little fun, no offense intended. Speed is pretty important for me, when I'm entertaining and have 5 or 6 people waiting on coffees (and me being the last in that line...). And there IS a difference--good microfoam depends on being able to roll the milk after stretching, keeping tiny bubbles in solution. If you can't roll, your bubbles will be converging to the surface, getting bigger and drying out. Sometimes you can swirl the pitcher afterwards and get them back into solution, sometimes you can't. Because of your posts, though, I'm curious enough that I'm going to ask every cafe I visit what they have their steam pressure set to. > He also > maintains that all raising the steam pressure does is shorten the life > of the heating element and pressure stat. To quote a bad movie, "You wanna live forever?" Four years into my machine, steam set to 1.45, no failures of either part. They are not going to kill your wallet anyway. Living with a difficult process for years, to save a few bucks on a part because it lasted 12 months longer, is false economy. Having a well-tuned machine that does what you want it to, with minimal compromises, is what it's about. I don't know what you pay over there, but over here we pay $1,500+ for these machines, hardly a purchase made by someone on a super tight budget. However, I'm just type-A enough that I'll probably lower my steam to .8 just so I can say that I have, and see how I like the result. :) talk soon, bmc -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en.
