Today, we're going to talk about the Decent milk jug.
Now, I am the person who designed and iterated it,
so I am probably going to do most of the talking today.
The first thing I'd like to talk about with the milk jug is these precision measurement lines
that go all the way to the bottom and all the way to the top.
And the reason I put those in is
I was really struggling when I was making various latte and flat white and other drinks
with how much foam I needed.
And when I finally nailed it, I realized it was a ratio between how much milk I put in
and how much foam there was afterwards.
So I might start with, f.ex., 180ml when I started not foaming,
and then when it was finished foaming, it was 50% more - 250ml - and I like that.
And by having measurement lines in,
I made sure that every time I foamed, I did it right
or if I did it wrong, I could eye ball it and see that.
And it's there for both, right handed and left handed people.
So you can get it from this side or this side,
and you can still see the measurement lines here.
There's a lot of markings on the lines,
because the ratio of dilution turns out to be quite important.
When you're making a latte - f.ex. I make a morning latte for ma partner -
I do 36g out of espresso,
and she likes exactly 160g of milk.
If I give her 150g, she says "uh this tastes off",
if I give her 170ml she goes like "uh it's a bit milky",
and then it's just right at 160ml.
I know that sounds absurd,
but coffee and caffeine in particular, you know they're toxins,
and we're very, very sensitive to the concentration of it.
That's right.
And so the exact dilution - just like cocktails - is pretty important.
Do you have any comments about that?
Um yeah, I definitely agree with the volume as it expands,
and I like to think of it, kind of like, if you want a bit thicker foam,
I want to see at least 50% increase,
if I want a Latte maybe 25% increase,
and if I am really doing a delicate Latte Art,
maybe even a bit less than that.
So it really does matter what sort of drink you're making,
to how much you need it to expand,
but with the lines inside, you can actually really accurately do it,
and you don't have to use a scale to sort of weigh,
you can just look off the lines and know you're in the ball park straight away.
So I think especially when you're just starting out,
it's pretty important to measure things.
Otherwise, you aren't repeatable.
Now, if you are in a café, there's another reason to do this.
I remember talking to Scott Rao,
and once he in his café - just to see how much milk wastage there was -
he set up a bucket.
And all the baristas, with the waste milk they had,
were supposed to dump it in the bucket.
And what he found was 20% of the milk they're buying was being thrown down the sink.
And since he was buying expensive organic milk, that was expensive.
Yes, yes.
And even if you're at home, it's kind of painful to waste that much nice milk.
Putting just the right amount in, I think, makes a big difference.
There is one other reason,
which is with Latte Art,
is that as that as you're pouring, thicker foam will tend to be on the bottom.
And so if f.ex. you're pouring a 250ml Latte,
but you've got 250ml of foam,
it's going to be too thin when you reach the bottom.
And that won't be quite right.
And obviously it's really bad if you're just exactly at what you need,
and you're like sort of scraping the bottom, because kind of this beer foam,
comes out at the very end,
and you don't really want that,
unless you're making, like, an Italian cappuccino and you just want a blob.
So I think that's another reason.
Yeah, I like to play a little game with myself,
because obviously Latte Art is kind of
can you stretch the milk for air in there
and micro foam to be just enough?
And because I am sort of reducing the amount of air I am letting in,
I'm always playing chicken with can I pull it through and have enough foam to place my art?
And, you know, just kind of working on that kind of makes you more accurate in itself.
And definitely with the lines, you can achieve that a lot more easily.
So the other thing I noticed is that if you heat your milk beyond 70°C,
you ruin the drink.
First of all, the milk is going to taste cooked,
but also, if you pour that hot milk on the espresso,
I don't really know why,
it just ruins the flavor permanently.
So too hot milk on there, even when it's cooled, is going to taste bitter.
Yeah, when you start reaching over 70°C,
you basically start to reduce the sugars,
and that's why your overall beverage at the end is not as sweet or it is generally a little bit more bitter.
Right.
And it has that sort of cold milk on a warm day sort of thing,
when you after an hour, you got that aftertaste.
It kind of has that little bit of a taste in there,
so yeah, try to keep it under 70°C, and you should be alright.
So there is a solution to this,
and the solution is to use a thermometer.
But you'll see there's a clip on this thermometer,
and everyone hates these clips, because you put the thermometer on,
and then as you're pouring,
it flops stuck to the back and maybe even falls out.
Also, it's in the way, and it doesn't even stay in place,
so everyone hates these clips.
This is our milk thermometer, and we do ship it with a clip,
because that's what people expect.
But you don't need to use the clip if you have a Decent milk jug,
because about 3 months of figuring out the exact size of a hole here
meant that you can just put the thermometer straight in,
and I'll show you what that looks like,
it is just slide in like that, and give it a tap,
and it's completely locked in and it doesn't fall out
and then, to take it out, you just give it a twist and it pulls out.
Let's do that again:
So, slide in - tap - totally locked.
Okay?
I don't know why no one has actually copied this,
it's a pretty obvious idea,
everyone hates the clip,
but it's really a key feature of this milk jug, that it makes it really easy.
Now, one other aspect of using this little hole
is that the milk thermometer is out of the way.
Right?
So as I am steaming here, it isn't in my face,
whereas when I use the clip, it's here, it's completely in the way
and I can't steam as easily.
So that clip is just a wonderful thing.
And I'll show you, this is the 600ml jug,
this is the 350ml jug, and they both work the same way,
it locks like so,
pours, comes out.
I wish every café did this.
Back to milk temperature.
So I did make these walls quite thin,
and that was on purpose.
The reason they're thin is that the majority of people,
they heat the milk and they know when to stop
basically by counting down from when it starts to hurt their hand.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but that actually is what cafés do.
So they put their hand like this, on the bottom
and it turns out that around 50°C is the threshold of pain,
at which point it starts to hurt.
And you want your milk typically between 55°C and 60°C,
so do that and then count down 3 seconds if you want 55°C,
count down 10 seconds if you want 65°C...
sort of.
But a) it's painful,
and b) especially if you're a café,
this hand starts to become numb
and the temperature starts to creep up.
Or, again, if you're a café,
you're in a rush, it's the morning rush,
you just stop early, and then you start serving your customers cool drinks.
There's one other thing about using milk thermometers that is super important,
and that's that if you are pouring drinks into ceramic,
it's going to cool by about 10°C as soon as you pour it in.
If you're pouring your drinks into paper, it cools by about 2°C,
that's to say almost not at all.
That's super important if you're a café and you're doing takeaway drinks,
you should be stopping your steaming 10°C earlier.
And if you're not, you're giving people too hot drinks.
Another reason that's important besides the fact that people are getting too hot drinks
is that milk tastes better the less it's heated.
And the current trend in cafés - especially in Third Wave quality places -
is to bring milk temperature down to 50°C or even 55°C,
in that range and never above 55°C,
because the milk has a much fresher, buttery flavor from that.
And it seems to have a little bit more texture as well.
Not sure if the heat is causing the bubbles to last a little bit longer or staying a bit more robust,
but I definitely do notice a difference when it's a little bit lower,
and I find it pairs a little bit better with lighter roast coffees,
because it ultimately will be a little bit sweeter.
It's true that especially lighter roast people are really into keeping that temperature down.
What we're talking about here is 2 or 3 seconds between 55°C and 60°C, 65°C.
If you can do that consistently without a digital thermometer,
then you're amazing.
The rest of us, you should get a thermometer,
and so you don't curse everything,
use one of these little holes.
Next, we should probably talk about this quite unusual spout,
which is pointed.
And the reason this spout is pointed is that
when I designed this milk jug, I asked a friend of mine in America
to get me as many competition latte artists as I could,
and I got 22 competition latte artists,
and I asked them what did they want in a spout.
And they all said loudly, "we just want a straight angle".
And I know that's super weird and super unusual,
but the reason is that the vast majority of milk jugs have this kind of sloping thing, like this,
and those are fantastic for beginner to intermediate.
Basically, the milk just kind of gushes out,
comes out and easily spread out,
and you get this huge rosetta or heart pattern, kind of without any effort.
However, once you advance beyond that kind of basic pattern,
and you want to do more detailed lines, let's say swans - like a swan neck is quite fine -,
now you've got a problem with that sort of thing.
And the reason this is a triangluar shape
is that as you angle this,
it literally increases the flow.
You can treat it as a thick
and then thin paint brushes you back up, and then thick again like that.
And it gives you really fine control,
but it is more work if it's more skill,
and people who don't like this - generally because they haven't stuck with it -
and you have to learn.
And I know when I was a beginner,
we used to sell that sort of big spout.
And I liked the bigger spout one,
and then I think about 3 or 4 months after I got into it, I realized I was only using this,
because I liked the finer control and I didn't need that clutch anymore.
Yeah, I think it's great for framing with the broad lips,
and you can get beautiful balance of the hearts and rosettas,
but once you've mastered that stage and you really want to start to work on other things,
you will find that that broad lip won't give you the flexibility
in terms of the pace and the build that is going in,
and if you practiced Latte Art long enough,
you'll kind of know it's all about the pace, the position and the pour,
and if you don't have control over the pour, then you are limited to what you can achieve with that actual jug.
So with this jug, it gives you the opportunity to practice the pace and pour,
but also to have the ability to achieve those more complex Latte Art.
But if you did stick with it, you will find that your milk pouring skills will be a lot more accelerated
in terms of pace of learning, than compared to a broad lip.
So some people try it and they don't like it, and -
you know - they kind of miss out a little bit,
but I understand it if they like to use what they're used to using, and that's fine.
But if you do feel like you're up to the next challenge and you want to push your Latte Art,
I would suggest getting a more precision lip like the one we sell.
So Paul has already made an espresso,
and he's going to pour a Latte Art now with our 350ml milk jug.
So we're going to start now.
So the crema has died on here, so I need to pour this a little bit slower.
But the milk is good,
ok,
I am going to pull it through here now.
And I was almost at that stage where I was basically almost running out of foam.
What I noticed with Latte Art is lots of very fine lines,
like you see these aren't big spreads, these are like really fine onion lines.
And that's kind of typical of this jug is very fine detail.
Thanks for watching this video - all about the Decent milk jug,
and if you give it a try, I would love to see in the comments below what you think of it
and if you think that there's anything that we could do to improve it.
Thank you very much.