The day my steam wand blew up in my face taught me something about milk frothing

I've been running my little cafe in Santa Monica for about 3 years now. Last Tuesday during the morning rush, I went to steam some oat milk and the wand started sputtering like crazy then shot hot milk all over my arm. Turns out I had been submerging the tip way too deep this whole time, basically drowning the milk instead of aerating it. My barista part timer watched me and just said 'you know you only need to go like a half inch under the surface right' and I felt like an idiot. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize you've been doing a basic technique wrong for years?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_fiona1mo ago

Oh man, that "you know you only need to go like a half inch under the surface" hit me right in the gut. I think we've all had those moments where the person with less experience ends up schooling us on something we thought we had down solid. That burn on your arm must have stung double too, like the physical pain plus the embarrassment. It's wild how sometimes the simplest tweak, like depth of the wand, can make or break the whole process.

kai_park1mo ago

Wait, wait wait... you're telling me that burn was from actually touching the glass with your arm? I thought that was just like, a figure of speech or something. Dude how bad was the scar from that?