The short answer

Size the jug to your cup with a glass of water. Fill the cup to the level you drink to, tip it into the jug, and look at the line: if the water reaches past halfway, that jug is too small for that drink. Milk climbs as it steams and needs the top half of the jug to climb into, so halfway is the working limit (a rule of thumb, not a measured line).

Match the jug to the drink, using the capacity each maker prints:

  • One small milky drink: the De'Longhi 12 oz jug, 350 ml, which fills to about 5.9 oz of milk at half.
  • One latte: the Breville Pro Control Jug at 14.2 oz, or the MHW-3BOMBER 500 ml pitcher at about 16.9 fl oz.
  • Two drinks from one steaming, or a large mug: the Rattleware 20 oz pitcher, which fills to 10 oz of milk at half.
  • Already own a Bambino Plus: start with the 16 fl oz steel jug in its box and pour with it before buying another.

Pick the spout by the drink. A narrow spout lays a thin stream on the surface for a pattern, and a wide one fills a mug faster.

Half-fill, jug by jug

Half fill is the milk that goes in before steaming. The ounce and millilitre conversions below are arithmetic on the maker's figure (1 fl oz is 29.6 ml), and the half-fill column is arithmetic on the halfway rule, so neither is a tested capacity.

  • De'Longhi DLSC060: the maker's page states 350 ml, which is 11.8 fl oz. Half fill: 175 ml, about 5.9 oz.
  • Breville Pro Control Jug (BEA401): the maker's page prints 14.20 oz next to a separate weight of 0.47 lb, and one retailer's copy calls the 14.2 oz the fill capacity. Half fill: about 7.1 oz.
  • Bambino Plus box jug: the maker's box list states a 16 fl oz steel jug. Half fill: 8 oz.
  • MHW-3BOMBER P5020W: the maker's specification table pairs capacities of 400, 500 and 600 ml with weights of 170, 195 and 225 g, so this 500 ml model weighs 195 g. Half fill: 250 ml, about 8.5 oz.
  • Rattleware 20 oz: the maker states 20 oz, stainless steel, with graduations etched up the inside. Half fill: 10 oz.

The gap between the smallest and largest of these is a factor of 1.7 in milk, from 5.9 oz to 10 oz. That is the whole range of decisions in this page: one small drink, one large drink, or two.

Three mistakes the water test catches

  1. A jug that is too small. The foam has nowhere to go, climbs past the base of the spout and spills. The test shows it before you buy: if your cup's water passes the halfway line, go up one size.
  2. A jug that is too big for the drink. A few ounces of milk in a 20 oz jug spreads thin across a wide base, and the steam tip has little depth to work in. This is common home-barista advice and was not tested for this guide; the water test shows it as a cup that fills only a quarter of the jug.
  3. A second jug bought for the wrong reason. Pour with the first jug for a few weeks. Buy another only when something specific goes wrong: milk that will not stay on the surface, or a jug that overflows before the foam is made.

What the spout decides

A spout decides how wide the stream is and how sharply it can be cut off. A narrow, sharply drawn spout makes a thin stream that sits on the surface of the drink, which is what a poured pattern is made of. A wide, rounded spout makes a stream that sinks, which is right for filling a mug of milky coffee and wrong for a heart.

So the question to answer before buying is whether a pattern is the point. If it is, the narrow spout matters more than the capacity, and Latte Art for Beginners: The First Three Shapes is the next page to read. If it is not, the wide spout pours faster and is easier to control with one hand, and nothing is lost.

One thing to know before comparing listings: none of the makers here publishes the width of the spout. The Rattleware page prints 5 by 5 by 5 inches with no axis labels, on the same page and in the same words as a physically different pitcher, so that block reads as a placeholder and this guide takes no spout figure from it. Judge a spout from a side-on photograph, and treat any adjective ("precise", "fine") as the seller's.

If you own a Bambino

  • Bambino Plus. The 16 fl oz jug in the box fills to 8 oz of milk at half. That sits between the 14.2 oz and 500 ml jugs above, the one-latte range, which is why the first step is to pour with it. The Plus also has an automatic steam wand with 3 milk temperatures and 3 texture levels, per its maker.
  • Bambino (BES450). The maker's page states a manual steam wand and gives no jug capacity for this machine in the pages read for this guide. If a jug came with yours, measure it: fill it to the brim from a measuring cup, write the number on the underside, and halve it. That number replaces everything above.

The Milk Cafe: a heated jug with two discs

The Milk Cafe heats the milk itself. Its maker states induction heating with automatic shutoff at the selected temperature, and two separate frothing discs, one for latte and one for cappuccino. The texture is chosen by swapping a disc rather than by moving a wand, and the size is whatever the appliance holds. The trade-offs are in The Milk Cafe and a Steam Wand.

What to check on a listing

  • The unit and the line. Makers print ounces or millilitres, and a printed capacity may be brim-full or a fill line. Only the Breville figure above is described by a retailer as a fill capacity. Treat every printed number as an upper bound and trust the water test.
  • Graduations. Of the jugs here, only the Rattleware states volume marks etched inside, which lets you measure the milk where you pour it.
  • Shape of the same size. The Rattleware maker also sells a centre-post variant of the same 20 oz pitcher, published as aimed at better aeration. That is a second shape at one size, not a second size.

Buying one, in one paragraph

Buy on capacity first: run the water test with the cup you drink from and pick the smallest jug that stays under halfway. Buy the narrow spout if you plan to learn a pattern and the wide one if you do not. Buy steel, because the jug's temperature against your hand is how the milk is judged before any thermometer is involved. One jug is enough for a long time.

Keep reading