Thread: Putting a M10 female on a 8 mm tube

Originally Posted by stebbo

The main thing is being able to swap tips at will according to requirements, or maybe to play until I can find a single tip satisfying all requirements.

The steamer comes stock with a single 0.75 mm hole in the tip. I could consistently get heavenly silky microfoam with it, but it would take about 45 seconds for 180 mL milk, in which time I would be watching the crema on the poured espresso slowly disappear .

I drilled out the hole to 1.2 mm and wow!! 15 odd seconds now. Definitely more consistent throughout and it marks better. Has the power to see some more vertical action going, giving more of a vortex than just a horizontal swirl.

Flow rate through an orifice is proportional to radius to the 4th power so, given an unlimited supply of steam at constant pressure changing the radius by 1.2/0.75 = 1.6 times should give you 6.5 times more steam!

Michael, 90% of the art of steaming is technique but the size of the hole(s), the number and their arrangement are all part of the barista's toolkit.
Finer holes make finer bubbles and silkier foam but as stebbo demonstrated release less steam, so it takes longer.
The size and geometrical arrangement controls the horizontal and vertical swirling etc.
Perhaps not surprisingly steaming for one/two usually is best done with fewer/smaller holes.

I have three tips for my La Cimbali machine - one with a single larger hole in the middle, one with four fine holes - one in the middle and three set on a steep angle around that one, and one with four very fine holes all at a more shallow angle.

I used to know all the sizes of the holes and the angle from vertical etc and used to swap them over depending on the volume of milk I was steaming but these days I leave the tip with four at shallow angles on because I am usually only steaming for two persons.