Breville Milk Café Frothe for Lattes, Cappuccinos and Hot Chocolate, One Size, Brushed Stainless Steel

I learned these first important things while from using the amazing Jura espresso machines that also foam. I have a jura for each place I live. These recommendations are important for the Breville too.1. Use high protein milk. there is a brand "Fair Life" that has 13g of protein per serving. The amount of fat is not critical it's the amount of protein that's most important. However, skim is not good for great foam. 2% and whole work great. Fair Life is lactose free milk. I don't care about lactose one way or the other, this milk makes hands down the best foam ever!2. The fresher and colder the milk, the better. I check dates carefully.3. Detach wisk from foaming cup and immediately rinse both out in cold water after each batch. Quickly dry them with a clean towel, you're ready to go again. When I'm done making the number of batches I need (only 1 is need for lots of foam, enough for 3 maybe four drinks) I do the same thing but include a tiny amount of dish soap and lots of cold water for the clean after a first quick but thorough rinse. This takes seconds to do. NO need to put them in dishwashing machine. You can soak them in water with a tiny amount of vinegar if you like but you will find that if you have soft water and dry them immediately after cleaning, you won't likely ever actually need the vinegar soak. If you run the unit to get the milk really hot, you might get some caramelization or milk crusting on the inside of the cup, you should clean that up right away using cold and lukewarm water .... if you heat to 140 or less, which is plenty hot, and quickly clean after each batch, the crusting will not happen. Depending on how hot you run the foamer and/or how long you let the foaming cup sit with the remnants of milk in it, there is a chance you will have a tiny bit of milk crust in a groove of the wisk. In this case I soak the wisk in a mild vinegar and water mix. This is an irritant but considering the design of the wisk is an integral part of delivering great foam, I have reconciled myself to this slight nuisance.Depending on the milk itself, protein, temp and freshness, 8 0z of milk, using the cappuccino wisk (I recommend this wisk even for latte drinkers) heated at 138 to 140 degrees will take apps 2.5 minutes to heat and foam the milk. This 8 oz will fill a 20 oz container with foamed milk. I happen to use the minimum amount of milk appx 6 oz or so. This makes for some waste if you like a double double 12 oz latte but I can live with that.

I’ve had this for two years and I’m surprised I haven’t written a review for it yet. I was on the fence about buying it because it’s so pricey, but I haven’t ever regretted it.First, it seems I bought this after there was some recall for it being a fire hazard some years back. Mine hasn’t caught fire despite a lot of use, so I assume they fixed that issue.Second, I saw some complaints that it won’t froth non-dairy milks. In my experience that’s because non-dairy milks mostly don’t froth without additives, with the exception of hemp milk which is higher protein and froths very well in this machine. The ingredients of almond milk vary a lot, and I think most of us that are health-conscious enough to make our own stuff at home will tend to select almond milks that are just almonds, whereas coffee shops use ones with other ingredients added for costs and frothing purposes.Anyway, this thing works great. It comes with two discs, one that’s designed to froth it like crazy like a cappucuino, and a more subdued one that aerates a bit. I end up using the subdued one more often now that I’m back to milk, but nut milks tend to need the crazy disc.Two things ended up being really useful that I didn’t anticipate:1) Making matcha lattes is really easy because I don’t have to prep the matcha powder. I just dump 1.5 tsp of matcha into 8 oz liquid and add some honey and it stirs so well the matcha dissolves fine. Similarly, cocoa powder dissolves quickly.2) Being able to select the temperature, with the bottom temperature being about 100 degrees, is really nice if you’re trying to preserve some of the more delicate compounds in honey. When I’m sick I add a tsp of manuka honey and a tsp of this pollen/propolis/royal jelly/raw honey blend, and just set it to the lowest temperature, and the honey still works. It doesn’t work when I have to heat stuff conventionally at a higher temperature; the compounds start breaking down around 110 to 120F iirc. It should work for powders and such you may want to dissolve into drinks that are similarly heat-sensitive.It’s also easy to drink immediately, although obviously it gets cold much faster. But that’s actually nice too if you want a honey sweetened iced latte; honey won’t dissolve easily in cold drinks, but you can heat it lightly enough to get it incorporated and ice it.It also just lets you stir without heating, which has been useful sometimes.This machine is very easy to clean. I usually just put it in the dishwasher (I have a little covered compartment that I put the disc in), but you can also just put soapy water in it and stir/heat it like you would a drink and then rinse it out.It’s funny but I actually don’t use this as much for coffee as I do matcha lattes and hot chocolate, mostly because I only have a manual espresso machine so making espresso is a bit of an ordeal. But of course it’s great for coffee drinks as well.