I know very little about frothing milk for coffee, except that I do enjoy it added to most drinks, ie, chocolate, cafe latte, even chai latte. However, I've inherited 2 strange looking milk frothers, one new, and one barely used. They were wedding gifts a long time ago for a relative who was never into coffee, and she passed them on to me (though, I can only take coffee heavily diluted with milk, due to rapid heartbeat from even a decaf cut with a bit of milk.)
I do like coffee flavourings, and at one very old Italian restuarant I went to a few years ago, the server/co-owner was nice enough to give me a heaping serving of steamed, frothed milk, on top of a very nice chocolate & coffee drink cut with milk, which she made just for me because of my caffiene sensitivity.
I still remember the nice frothed milk, and have used, what I guess are cheap imitations of this, though pleasant, in the form of those manual Bodum frothers and cold skim milk. I now have inherited some machine called Cappuccino Plus, by Ariete of Italy, which looks like it's used only for steaming milk, since there is no drip area for coffee and it's got an extra thin attachement to the steaming wand. Almost needle sized.
My Aunt told me this machine was never used, and she knows it was pretty expensive at the time. I haven't seen anything else like this on the internet, that is, a dedicated electric steamer for only steaming or frothing milk. Has anyone had experience with any of these? It does look a little bit like those toy espresso steamers that Salton used to make, that is, a barrel to put the water into to steam, and a big cap, however, again, my machine is not for coffee, but for steaming/frothing milk only.
The second item she gave me was a nice little Bialetti or Frabosk Teflon lined manual frother. It's barely used, and appears to be made of brushed aluminum, and has a circular stove top pattern on the bottom, so presumably this is to be used on the stove, with heated milk only. I'm just wondering what kind of milk to used and what temp. setting to put it on to get the best results with this particular frother, and since it's much less intimidating than the Ariete machine, I'd like to try it out first. Any advice on the use of these two, very different machines?
Thanks for any input.