How to create thick cappuccino foam with Oatmilk ?

JHCCoffee

Just bought some Oatside Oatmilk (barista edition). Has the best taste in coffee of the alternative milks I’ve tried thus far. Lets the coffee shine through (doesn’t overwhelm it) and tastes great.

But I can’t get the thick cappuccino microfoam that I get with milk. Not even close. And it doesn’t last very long. What’s the trick?

HarveyMushman

Unfortunately it can just be down to the molecular composition of the product. We’ve got various ‘barista’ alternative milks sold here in the UK and the only one I’ve found steams well at all is Oatly Barista despite all of them claiming otherwise.

Even then it’s more difficult to steam well than dairy. Steam power helps. I struggled with machines I had before the Bianca and LM.

Dan

My experience is you have to be more aggressive when foaming. I use oatly barista (I think it has more fat than the regular stuff) but foam more aggressively, then just focus on incorporating. The challenge becomes creating a smooth microfoam after pumping a lot of air into the milk.

tompoland

As posted above, it may be the brand. Most oat milk for coffee have oil added so you could check the volume of that from one brand to another.

I have one oat milk coffee per day and get stellar microfoam using a Nano Foamer Pro.

JHCCoffee

Well, I’ve settled on Oatside, which tastes good in coffee. And to enhance the frothing, I add 2% dairy milk with 18% protein (for enhanced frothing). I get great thick cappuccino microfoam with ½ Oatside and ½ milk, so I am going to try ⅔ Oatside and ⅓ milk. The amount of dairy milk is very small, and the rest of my diet is all alternative milk, so all is good.

Jony

Still beggers belief people don’t make your own I make both Oat and Almond.

HarveyMushman

Jony

I haven’t found a way to make home-made oat milk steam like some of the commercial versions. It tastes good, works on cereal etc but the consistency is so thin compared to say Oatly Barista that steaming it is like steaming water.

JHCCoffee

HarveyMushman the consistency is so thin compared to say Oatly Barista that steaming it is like steaming water.

If you are able to tolerate a tad of dairy added in, try adding 18% protein milk to your homemade oatmilk. I found that even Oatly Barista or Oatside doesn’t make the gobby thick microfoam that I like with cappuccino or the silky microfoam I like with a latte. I tried 50/50 and got great results. I’m now going to try ⅔ oat and ⅓ high protein dairy.

A couple of other tricks:

use a thick stainless steel jug, such as one made by Mota.
Use the larger 500 ml one, which gives more room for stretching the milk
Keep the jug in the freezer
Put the milk in the jug just before you start to grind your beans (ie when you start your espresso making process) and put the jug back in the freezer
Use a lower steam temperature to give you more time to stretch the milk.
Stretch the milk smoothly but beyond your normal level before you put the wand deeper to thicken the foam.
Angle the wand and position the jug to create a stronger swirl than normal
Its ok to go abit higher in end temperature than normal. The oatmilk will tolerate it and not acquire a cooked milk taste. This gives you more time for stretching and thickening.
You might initially end up spilling abit of milk on your counter by pushing the stretching and swirling limits, to get that great texture. Until you get the hang of it.

HarveyMushman

JHCCoffee

Sorry I meant with home-made oat milk. The Oatly Barista works really well for me! That said the LM machines have really great steam so might be helping.

Haven’t touched dairy for maybe 20 years or more through choice rather than tolerance, no intention to start now!