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  • My name is Mike Jones, and I'm a barista at Third Rail Coffee right by Washington Square

  • Park in New York City. I'm going to teach you some basic coffee-making skills.

  • Alright, I'm going to show you how to steam milk with an espresso machine. The wonderful

  • thing about espresso is that besides just a straight shot and an Americano, there's

  • a multitude of milk drinks you can make. But first you have to know how to steam it right,

  • which is a little bit tricky. So this is the steam wand, and this turns it on. Some machines

  • will have a button that you push, or a level that you pull, this one is a knob that rotates.

  • You want to start out with high quality whole milk that's cold as well as a pitcher that's

  • also cold. So we have that in there. Now there's a few motions that you're going to want to

  • go through when doing this. The first is to submerge the tip of the steam wand just below

  • the surface of the milk. Start off with the pitcher straight up, and then angle it, this

  • way when you turn it on you'll create a whirlpool. The first thing you do when you turn it on

  • is let a little bit of air in, but you only want to do this for a few seconds, otherwise

  • you'll end up scorching the milk. Once you've let the air in, you sink the tip of the wand

  • in and just let it whirlpool until it gets to the correct temperature. So now I'm going

  • to steam this and show you how it should look. The first thing you always want to do is purge.

  • There can be buildup of milk or water in the tip and you don't want that going into the

  • milk. Alright, so again, I'm just going to let some air in. It's going to make a slight

  • hissing sound, and then I'm going to make a whirlpool. Then again, always purge afterwards

  • to get that milk out of there. So once you've steamed it, you can give it a couple knocks.

  • You'll see that there's just a few bubbles in there. And then swirl it around to incorporate

  • all that foam you just made. You'll see it's nice and glossy. This is called micro foam.

  • If you see too many spidery bubbles, that means that you've either let too much air

  • in, or not enough. Alright, that's perfect. And that's how you steam milk.

My name is Mike Jones, and I'm a barista at Third Rail Coffee right by Washington Square

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