# Latte art: Crema breaking when milk is poured



## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

So I'm using a Gaggia Classic, pull a shot, have it sit while the steam gets up to temp, foam the milk, then pour. This problem has been coming to me on and off; essentially what happens is when I pour the milk in, occasionally (but somehow this has been consistently happening for my last 10 or so coffees) the milk somehow resurfaces at the back of the cup (usually where the stem of the rosetta would be, or the biggest leaves of a tulip) without mixing into the crema. My 'canvas', the crema, then becomes a sort of floating dark-brown partial-moon alongside a sliver of lighter-brown milky coffee on the surface which my latte art will not pour into,which completely messes up the symmetry of any sort of pour. Googling doesn't seem to bring up very many threads where people have encountered similar issues, funnily enough.

I have tried pouring straight in, pouring with a figure of 8 (which worsens the problem and breaks up the crema more), and so far the best stopgap I can find is to swirl the crema/foam around for a bit to homogenize the surface before pouring again. But this obviously is not ideal since it reduces the contrast, and I have seen countless videos where that is absolutely not necessary.

Question - is this an issue with my crema, or with my pouring technique? (can provide a video if it is required)?

Edit: shown here is an example of a recent pour - below and to the right of the design there is a splotch of white which I initially started pouring down the middle, but the milk welled up behind the design/crema (as opposed to the design just pushing out from the spout) and caused it to drift to the left of the spout. Then I stopped the pour, and started in a less central area of the cup to do a subsequently smaller design.


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## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

Any tips, anyone? The photo below is a good example of the problem - my initial pour, with wiggles back and forth, causes the milk to well up behind the crema/pattern, which breaks the symmetry and creates that weird messy wing shape in the bottom. If I had continued pouring the whole pattern would have drifted to either side. I stopped the pour, then changed the Rosetta into the base of a tulip after waiting for a while for the surface to stabilize a bit. I think it might have something to do with the milk coming off the bottom of the cup wrong, but I've not had this problem for ages while using this same cup. I've changed my steaming technique since then, though, because I thought my milk was too foamy - is the milk too wet, perhaps?


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## Obnic (Jan 14, 2014)

It's probably a bit to do with your cup shape and a bit to do with your pour angle and speed. I.e. Too fast or high will flow across the bottom of your cup and back up the side.

I believe it's thought good practice to 'set' your crema at the start of your pour by pouring circles to mix a bit of milk and crema into a thicker uniform layer onto which you'll pour your Rosetta.

I do this slowly, with my cup at 45 degrees, and my spout about a half inch above the coffee and central.

You can also sink milk that floats by lifting your jug and pouring over the milk you want to re-sink.

Hope this helps. If not glevum and scotford seem to be genuinely gifted at this stuff.


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## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

Ah it still doesn't work - I tried a slower initial pour in a circle and somehow still got the crema separating from the cup walls, at which point I had to swirl the crema to mix it with the milk and stabilize the surface before etching in the corner of the cup where the crema was. Is there a possibility the milk may be too wet, with not enough foam to set the crema? The mouthfeel seems okay but it takes a split second before etching the surface, and the initial pour just seems like there's a lot of liquid and not a lot of air. (Thanks for the advice by the way!)









Edit: So it seems my initial pour might have been the culprit, being too fast - will try a few more pulls over the next few days and report back


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## Kowalencki (Dec 4, 2016)

@nightslayer Any chance of recording video on how you steam the milk with your Gaggia Classic? Pouring video would be also much appreciated







I have Gaggia Classic and when steaming milk for 2 cups I try to start the whirlpool when the light is off (after purging) but what happens is the light comes on, the boiler is switching off the heating system = pressure going down...and I can barely manage to get the milk to the right temp (otherwise I'd need to wait for the heating to kick in). Just to clarify; I'm using Rancilio v.1 upgrade. Would appreciate your input.

Cheers!


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## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

Ah hey mate - I don't think a video of my process would help you because I use a PID which bumps the temperature higher for more steam pressure.. I'm using the v1 Rancilio wand too! Also, even with my PID steaming milk for 2 cups gives suboptimal results (else I haven't found a proper way to do it yet) - I generally steam cup by cup.


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## Sami (Apr 18, 2013)

Why don't you swirl your espresso to homogenise it before pouring the milk?


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## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

Hmm I could, but then the way pros do it it doesn't seem to be necessary, so I don't want to rely on it to make up for poor technique - would rather know what I'm doing wrong! Also it lessens the contrast I think.


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## sordomudo11 (May 18, 2017)

nightslayer said:


> Hmm I could, but then the way pros do it it doesn't seem to be necessary, so I don't want to rely on it to make up for poor technique - would rather know what I'm doing wrong! Also it lessens the contrast I think.


I'm having the exact same issue! I went months without every having this happen, and my designs were getting better and better. And then, with no real rhyme or reason, I started having this issue with every. single. pour. about a month ago. I have tried changing milk, beans, pulling the shot while I steam the milk to minimize crema breakup, pouring more slowly, pouring in the middle of the cup, and pouring around the edges of the cup. But no matter what I do, the crema around the edges of the cup continues to break about mid-pour, ruining any hope for a decent design. Did you ever figure this out, @nightslayer?


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## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

sordomudo11 said:


> I'm having the exact same issue! I went months without every having this happen, and my designs were getting better and better. And then, with no real rhyme or reason, I started having this issue with every. single. pour. about a month ago. I have tried changing milk, beans, pulling the shot while I steam the milk to minimize crema breakup, pouring more slowly, pouring in the middle of the cup, and pouring around the edges of the cup. But no matter what I do, the crema around the edges of the cup continues to break about mid-pour, ruining any hope for a decent design. Did you ever figure this out, @nightslayer?


Well not quite.. but I've now changed my technique and this happens far less often! First thing I've stopped doing is going too far in a circle when initially setting the base - if I stick roughly to the centre when I first pour in then the crema doesn't break away from the walls of the cup; if I stray too far and hit the walls the crema tends to wash away. Second thing is when I start marking - I think I was trying to mark when the surface of the crema was too far from my spout (i.e. too little coffee in cup) so I was tipping too much milk in, which then welled back up and washed away the crema.. If you pour with more coffee already in the cup (yes counterintuitive, I know) it'll start marking quicker while you can maintain a steady *slow* stream. Hope that helps!

edit: and welcome to the forum


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## sordomudo11 (May 18, 2017)

nightslayer said:


> Well not quite.. but I've now changed my technique and this happens far less often! First thing I've stopped doing is going too far in a circle when initially setting the base - if I stick roughly to the centre when I first pour in then the crema doesn't break away from the walls of the cup; if I stray too far and hit the walls the crema tends to wash away. Second thing is when I start marking - I think I was trying to mark when the surface of the crema was too far from my spout (i.e. too little coffee in cup) so I was tipping too much milk in, which then welled back up and washed away the crema.. If you pour with more coffee already in the cup (yes counterintuitive, I know) it'll start marking quicker while you can maintain a steady *slow* stream. Hope that helps!
> 
> edit: and welcome to the forum


Thanks for the kind welcome! Interesting pointers. I've actually had a bit of success this morning giving up (at least with my current benas) on maintaining a pristine crema and allowing some small mixing to take place. It seems as though embracing the mixing works best, because it seems bound to happen with my current setup. So I'm trying to really tip the cup a lot to the side and then pour in a rapid circle around, allowing the milk to integrate with the crema in time for me to drop the pitcher and begin marking the surface.

The rub for really small drinks (particularly cortados/gibraltars) is that there's generally not enough time for the crema to break and then be reintegrated b/c it's such a small total amount of milk. So it's been just a disaster for me when pouring those drinks of late.


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## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

Have you tried a slower initial pour? Really control the flow at which the milk goes in at the start. That was causing a lot of problems for me without my realizing it. I.e. it really makes a difference what your milk does after it goes into the coffee past the crema, and you want to be thinking about how it interacts with the cup shape etc and what that will do to the surface of your canvas, and initial pours which have too much flow will come right back up off the bottom of the cup and break the surface violently the same way too much milk when trying to mark the surface will do. Not an expert myself by any means but I try to use some common sense and sometimes things actually work the way they're meant to


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