Hygiene - milk steamers

zagmund

Here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a while but keep forgetting . . . you know the way in a cafe when they steam the milk they then wipe the wand with a cloth before doing the next one . . . does this not end up with a pretty skanky, smelly and generally unhygenic cloth after a while ? No matter where I go this seems to be the way that cafes do it, so either it's not unhygenic or else there is some other way they are avoiding the problem that I can't work out.

Other than using a new cloth each time is there any way around the problem of having the milk cooking down on a damp cloth and getting icky over the period of a few uses ?

z

swarbrick1979

hi zagmund, i understand your concern in this department and i have similar worries, however, having worked in the industry, i can only tell you that if the staff are wiping the steam wand after every use, then you are buying your coffee from baristas that are clean and that care about their machine, their coffee and you. i have seen steam wands that never get wiped and the milk scum is 3mm thick. i do believe that hygenic disposable wipes can be used but i would worry that the chemical would taint the milk. In my opinion, as long as the cloth is rinsed every so often during the day, its perfectly safe.