01.20.10
Review of the Froth au Lait Professional Milk Frother (Models FALNS10 & FALNh-S14)
posted by Tracy Monson | 7 comments
If you own a tea cafe or drink a lot of tea lattes and don’t want to invest in a decent (read: expensive) espresso machine, affordable options for heating and frothing your milk and chai lattes are, unfortunately, quite limited. While I can’t speak to the adequacy and efficacy of the Froth au Lait Professional Milk Frother for home use, I cannot recommend the professional NSF version for commercial/cafe use unless you don’t mind replacing it every 6-18 months. I have owned four of them, employing two at a time, over the past three years, and eventually gave up on them for a different solution.
The Froth au Lait Professional looks promising: a sturdy, stainless steel pitcher mounts easily on top of a solid-appearing base with a simple on/off button and hot/cold switch. To use it, you assemble a three-part paddle on a hollow metal post in a pitcher, pour in the milk, mount it onto the base, and turn it on. The cycle time to heat and froth the milk is about 3-3.5 minutes - a long time if you’ve got several latte orders lined up during an insanely busy Saturday.
The cons of this device outweighed the pros for us. If your cafe is a loud, raucous place, you won’t mind the jarring (and, increasingly loud, over time) clatter it makes. Granted, espresso machine steamers are loud too, but a loud hisssss is preferable to the clankity-clank of this appliance for your cafe’s chi.
Your milk should be hot when it’s finished cycling, but unfortunately, ours would often stop halfway after making a few drinks in a row (this suggested to us that the thermostat got thrown off because the device isn’t adequate for subsequent cycles). As a workaround, we’d hold the button down to finish heating the milk.
About four months into owning the Froth au Laits, we noticed that the paddle assembly’s gears became worn down (plastic), causing a looser fit and resulting in additional clamor from spinning parts. More disturbing, however, was that milk would seep onto the motorized base because of the degradation of the paddle 
assembly’s fit. Because of this, and despite diligent and repeated cleaning, we still always had smelly deposits of milk around and under the motor post and base at the end of the day, which was very difficult to clean. I can only assume that repeated exposure to leaked milk from the pitcher caused the base to eventually fail, because they all died between six months of use (for the first one, which they replaced) and about 1+ years (for the last three, which they wouldn’t replace).
Because these units leak, have long, unreliable heating cycles, and plastic paddle frothing assemblies that become worn down with use, they are not really suitable for a busy cafe environment. As such, I consider them disposable and not of “professional” or commercial quality. In fact, I don’t know why they would even bother with the NSF certification when the leaked milk constantly pools on the base, creating an ideal environment for bacterial growth unless detailed after every use (the milk even gets under the spindle, which the paddle units attach to).
After having called several coffee equipment suppliers in search of a solution, I’ve found out that there is a general consensus that for commercial use this machine just doesn’t make the grade in terms of quality, performance, and durability. The only affordable solution I’ve found since these died is the Quick Mill Auto Milk Steamer (I got mine from Chris Coffee online for about $250). The cycle time is shorter (90 seconds), it heats the milk to a perfect 140 degrees each time (rendering lactose in milk at its sweetest), and it’s a lot easier to clean.
If you’ve found a solution to the latte-making-sans-espresso-machine conundrum for $1000 or under, I’d love to hear about it!
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Glad I’m not a coffee drinker…….!
January 25th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Well, I can’t personally speak to the quality and/or longevity of this device, but for the price, it might be worth it for you to try out. Looks intriguing to me.
http://www.1st-line.com/machines/home_mod/eg/50.htm
January 26th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Thanks so much for your suggestion, Zach! Unfortunately, you need to have this on a stovetop (preheating) in order for this to work, and we don’t have one behind the service counter.
February 12th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Tracy, the only other suggestion I would offer wouldn’t work for the same reason the one from Zach wouldn’t. Becuase I know your store, it wouldn’t be feasible for you to have something where you have to heat the milk before frothing it into something else. For home, for the person on a budget there are frothers that come from people like Bodum that work great but they aren’t motorized so you have to do the frothing yourself. I hope that you new steamer continues working nicely for you. Hope to see you sometime after the Spring Thaw!!
Peace,
Fr. Patrick
February 12th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Just in case someone is interested in home use products for this purpose, here is the link for Bodum
http://www.bodumusa.com/shop/group_lines.asp?MD=1&GID=4&CHK=&SLT=&mscs sid=ET498FGKK6E19PNUER337LRL6NW9EGB9
Fr. Patrick
July 4th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I bought one of these machines for my retail store. We have a cappuccino machine and needed more froth for our volume. Our 1st machine we bought we used a lot and worked well. I think we over filled it a few times on the first machine and it leaked into the the base. The motor burned out. So we sent it back to the company to be repaired and in the meantime we bought another thinking it was our fault we damaged it. But when we got the 2nd machine we took such good care to not overfill it and care for it which we did. About 4-5 months later we were experiencing the same problems, pitcher not getting hot, milk leaking into the motor.
The bottom line no matter how you take care of these machines they will always break down no matter what. I bought 2 of the s”so called” professional units and now I use for bookends in my store. When you call the owner (Lynn) she will always say it’s the operaters fault.
This company WILL NOT stand behind there product no matter. If anyone buys this product be prepared to WASTE your money. These machines will leak no matter how you treat them. Trust me, I been in business for 25 years and have never used a product that failed so quickly not once but twice.
July 6th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Thanks for your input, Steve! I’m sorry to hear you wasted your money on this garbage as well. It REALLY bugs me how manufacturers blame the end user (consumer) for poor design, workmanship, and/or engineering. I can’t imagine this product being on the market much longer, esp. their so-called “professional” version, because it simply isn’t suited to commercial use, the NSF certification being an absolute waste.
BTW, our QuickMill is still working, although one part did fail fairly quickly after we got it (it was a small valve that fell apart). We’ve since replaced it, and it works fine. The main drawback to it is that we can’t run our chai through it, and since we don’t use pre-made concentrates or syrups (ours is freshly made with milk, spices, and tea each day), heating it using other methods is rather time consuming.