Cappuccino'd Capillaries

Mmmm, coffee gooooooood

Recently I've been on a quest to make the perfect cappuccino. Or at least a damn good one. And I've mostly succeeded; I now far prefer to make my own cap than spend $3.50 at Starbucks. (OK there's a lot of things I'd rather do than spend $3.50 at Starbucks).

I cleaned up the old Krups that I think my folks gave me back when I was in college. I've had it a while. I ran it through a decalcification cycle (white vinegar) and took it apart where I could to clean out old (very old!) stuck coffee grounds. Then, I started to experiment. It makes a great espresso, with really nice crema, when the coffee is tamped properly. That took a while to figure out; I finally bought a tamper and realized I hadn't been pressing my grounds nearly hard enough before (they say 20~30 lbs of pressure, but really, how the HELL do you know what that is?!). I also bought a thermometer for the milk, and immediately realized I hadn't been getting my milk hot enough either. Somewhere along the line I'd come to believe that the right temperature for the milk is the temp at which the metal milk steamer pitcher is too hot to hold. Bollocks. It's too hot to hold for my fragile little fingers at about 110º, maybe 120º if I'm not awake yet (but will be then!!). Proper temperature is 150º~160º. Get a thermometer.

My steamer makes a very nice froth without too much effort; in fact it can make too much froth and overflow the pitcher before it's at temp. I've found that 1% milk makes entirely too much froth, so 2% seems to work better. Also I get more of the thick 'creamy' milky stuff to cap the coffee with (before I dump a load of foam on top) with the 2% than the 1%. However I've noticed that I really don't have that much of it, and if I really wanted to venture down the latte-art path, I wouldn't have what I needed.

So the other day at Trader Joe's I noticed a milk I hadn't seen before; the "cream top" milk. It instructs you to shake before using, as the cream naturally rises to the top, and the fine print notes that it's actually a non-homogenized milk. I thought this would be interesting to try.

This morning I used it for the first time. Wow! What a difference. I got a GREAT milky cream out of it and poured the prettiest cappuccino I've ever made out of it. Then the foam on top was thicker and more solid than any I've made before and made for quite the gorgeous drink. I should have gotten a picture, so will try to do that tomorrow. But yummy.

By the way the frothing guide I read a long time ago (and probably should read again) is at http://www.coffeegeek.com/guides/frothingguide