Are your wands being cleaned properly at night?? And flushed in between steamings?? I find when my cappuccinos are not foaming correctly, the milk has either frozen at some point or it is too warm. If none of these conditions lead to a solution then a conversation with your manager about having the machine serviced may be in order.

We have the newer machines and they do a damn good job of steaming cappuccinos, even for extra dry. I have a regular who gets a venti latte w SFV and 2 quad espresso macchiattos in tall cups w extra foam (foam to top of cup). I can steam enough milk and foam for this by steaming 2 pitchers of milk filled to the grande line and aerating as if for bone dry cappuccinos. I only every run into a problem when my milks are out of temp.

Food for thought. Hope it helps.

When I was trained with the newer machines I was told 3-4 seconds for lattes and 6-8 seconds for cappuccinos when steaming. Oh and one thing I noticed is that you wanna make sure that the handle is pulled down all the way there’s two modes it does you wanna make sure you do the second one.

i completely agree, my mastrena 1 steam wands were actually pretty perfect and i miss them. we got used mastrena 2s from a store that closed in our district like 8 months ago because the old machines needed service like every week so we had to get the new ones and now i’m like this shit might look new but it is definitely not a real baristas dream

The only way I can do it is by aerating on "short mode" for most of the time. Then finish it off on normal power. It's still not great but it's the only thing possible