I started using 4 oz mason jars with flip top sealed lids. I fill the jars to the brim, to reduce air space. I then freeze the beans. As there are too many beans in the jar for two shots of my 16 to 17g dose, I end up putting the bean jar back into the freezer. Now as soon as I open this very cold jar, moisture forms on its interior surface. **So I suspect that there is some moisture on the beans that remain in the jar, which I then place back in the freezer. Is this moisture a concern? Will it degrade my beans?** Alternatively I could remove the jar from the freezer the night before and leave it sealed until it unfreezes. I would then loose the benefit of grinding from frozen. Or go back to individually (single) dosed vacuum sealed and frozen bags, which will work well with my NZ. Its abit of a pain in the b** to prepare some 20 vacuum packed bags, but the subsequent single dose workflow is great, and will be even better with the NZ (no more weighing beans, as each dose is already pre-weighed). Plastic waste is minimal, as I re-use the bags. Thoughts?

@"JHCCoffee"#p30815 The moisture appears when the moisture in the warm kitchen air touches the glass inside. When you reseal, that moisture is trapped and added to next time. Can you remind me of the benefits when grinding from frozen?

@"DavecUK"#p30835 I was about to ask the OP the same question. In the first place I seriously doubt the "frozen" state of beans exists as such as beans do not contain that much water (if any at all). On top of that the moisture can be the way to prevent electrostatic build up during grinding, people use water sprays to deliver moisture before grinding the beans.

The idea behind frozen beans is that you end up with a slightly tastier espresso but that you have to grind the beans while they are still frozen otherwise you have the opposite i.e. weaker and thinner espresso . I've ground hundreds of doses of frozen beans and kept a log for pete's sake. A bit nerdy like that. I can't say that the espresso was better from frozen beans (maybe a teensy bit but even so, not worth the fuss), but I can say that it was weaker and thinner if left to thaw, relative to being ground when frozen. So @"JHCCoffee"#639 I guess if you grind while still frozen, the moisture issue should go away?

> @"tompoland"#p30866 So [@JHCCoffee](https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/u/JHCCoffee) I guess if you grind while still frozen, the moisture issue should go away? Here’s the issue. I was placing about 50g in a 4 oz glass mason jar and freezing the jar. However when I take the jar out of the freezer, moisture forms on the glass, inside and out. That’s additional moisture, as the room air touches the glass. Now that is OK for the 1st batch of frozen beans that I am about to grind. But … when I put the jar back in the freezer, there is now say 34g of coffee plus additional moisture that wasn’t there before. This cycle repeats until the beans are gone; ie one more time. Somewhere I read that one should not place a bag of beans or even an airtight jar of beans in the freezer, then remove the bag from the freezer, take out beans and then place the bag back in the freezer; I presume for that very moisture reason. Now I’ve read more than afew studies that indicated that there is no harm in freezing beans, as long as you completely thaw and warm the beans (to room temp) before unsealing the package, so as to not create moisture. And I have read a study or two on the benefits of grinding from frozen beans. I’m betting that someone has posted the study here. I do like the idea of preparing bags or jars of single doses in advance, especially now that I have the NZ. And I do like grinding from frozen. So what I may do is load the jars with only the dose that I plan to consistently use in my NZ (say 16.5g) and then freeze the jars. The only issue is that there will be more air (O2) in the jars, with the staling of the beans slowed by the freezing. Will the extra O2 be a problem? My fall back option is to vacuum seal and freeze individual portions. I then cut the top off the bag and grind from frozen. I then keep and reuse the now slightly shorter plastic vacuum bag. Thoughts? Ideas?

> @"JHCCoffee"#p30881 as you completely thaw and warm the beans (to room temp) before unsealing the package, so as to not create moisture. Sorry to say that my experience of thawing frozen beans is that it produces less than optimal espresso. It loses viscosity and flavor. But as I always say, try it and see what your experience is, you may come to a different conclusion.

And yes, better to vacuum seal individual doses with a low pressure sealer. I've used a packing machine for this for thousands of doses. But @"DavecUK"#1 knows the ins and outs of this. Trouble is, it can be difficult for people to find somewhere to recycle the small plastic bags.

https://youtu.be/s4OsG5KgBq0 Ona have done a lot of work on this.

Worth reading https://beanscenemag.com.au/big-freeze-theres-no-longer-barrier-coffee-freshness/

@"tompoland"#p30885 Thanks for the information links tompoland. A great read/view, which confirms my earlier reading on the benefits of grinding from individual vacuum sealed frozen bags. (Conversely opening a larger frozen bag or container to retrieve frozen beans immediately introduces condensation moisture to that bag/container, so I have avoided that). So I was vacuum sealing individual portion bags and then freezing. But that was/is a too slow process, especially when my too cheap/closet space friendly vacuum sealer overheats (purchased to avoid overfilling the kitchen closet with my ever growing collection of coffee stuff, which my wife complains about). Time to buy a better vacuum sealer and find a storage solution for it. Given the tedium of vacuum sealing 20 or so single dose bags per pound of coffee (so 40 bags when I buy 2 lbs), I bought 24 mini mason jars of 4 oz size, which is the smallest available. I then easily and quickly filled the jars and froze them. The problem is as I described: moisture forms within the jars as soon as they are opened and returned to the freezer; not good. So back to vac sealing and freezing small bags, I guess, with a better vacuum sealer. Except I am getting lazy at my advanced age, and vacuum sealing 40 bags at a sitting is a pain in the bu*. Maybe I will go the small single dose test tube route Anyway @"tompoland"#p30887 I do find informative that you have found that freezing and then defrosting beans degrades viscosity and flavor. Conversely my online reading (such as the taste test on HB) indicates that there is no impact. I guess that I will need to complete my own taste tests, as you have.

@"JHCCoffee"#p30893 have you done a blind tasting with frozen and non frozen beans to make sure you can actually taste the "benefit"? The coffee world is full of ritual and process in search of the best shot. Freezing, vacuum sealing etc will definitely cost you time and effort. Whereas you only night be able to taste the benefit. I've played around and on balance have settled on only freezing coffee if it'll be more than 6 weeks from roast date before I'll drink it (pretty much only emergency decaf for guests). Otherwise I just keep in a dark air tight container.

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Moisture Formation in Frozen Coffee Bean Mason Jars - Good or Bad?

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