This gets into another closely related topic, as the vacuum packing, freezing and grinding from frozen vs grinding from unfrozen decisions are all intertwined.

I hope I am not repeating a thread topic; I searched for one and didn’t find one.

So, if you are interested …

Who in this Forum grinds from frozen vs grinds from unfrozen?

How has this impacted taste? For what types of beans and roasts?

Have you done any taste testing on this? Can you share the results? @tompoland I think you may have.

How do you adjust your brew ratio or grind, when grinding from frozen?

PS We could do a poll, if people think it’s worthwhile.

I’ve done both for many months at a time for each and the big takeaway for me was to grind while still frozen (for maximum flavor) but other than that the taste difference is negligible with the frozen beans possibly being a little more viscuous.

These days I still freeze a reserve supply for guess who tend to like darker roasts than me.

Freezing is also really handy for when I have a surplus of roasted beans and don’t want to waste them. I really don’t like running out of my own beans because it’s quite hard if not impossible to get a style I like from local roasters. So I tend to roast a few too many and then occasionally freeze them in the tubes.

I brewed an espresso on an unfrozen beans and a frozen beans this morning. Based on my experience I have to grind coarser on the frozen beans to match the weight and time of the unfrozen beans

On a totally different slant to this topic; Would grinding from frozen continually risk accelerated wear to the grinder?

    Nightrider_1uk I don’t think so. There’s hardly any moisture in the beans, so there’s nothing there to solidify as such when frozen.

    The only thing I noticed when grinding from frozen is that the pour significantly slows right down about halfway through, which explains why you need to grind coarser.

    The other thing is that the beans will attract moisture from your home environment and that will condense on their surface. So if you do grind from frozen, do it as quick as you can.

      DavecUK - Same here Dave, specially with steel burrs, not coated in any way. One of the reasons why, despite many saying “it’s OK”, I do not do RDT (i.e.: moisten the beans) in order to reduce static. Thankfully for me, the Niche is not prone to static issues. But I know other grinders are.

          We freeze bread to keep if fresh and use from frozen. Some moisture always condenses on it. ;) I turn it over part way through waiting for it to thaw to even it out. It actually noticeably improved one bread we used to use.

          It’s simple physics. Moister will condense onto the beans. Does it matter - pass.

            MediumRoastSteam Thankfully for me, the Niche is not prone to static issues. But I know other grinders are.

            Niche was for me but that reduced pretty quickly in terms of weight of beans. Others noticed this as well. Grinds sticking to the side of the can and weak clumps.

              ajohn It’s simple physics. Moister will condense onto the beans. Does it matter - pass.

              That’s the 64000 dollar question I’m not sure and unwilling to find out.

              Contact me

                Agreed - I freeze beans but always allow them to thaw out before grinding just in case.

                The bulk of my bean orders are for one that noticeably oil up over several days. I assume this is due to degassing. Once ready they go in the fridge. I’ve put 2 cans in the freezer this time. One in use. So next to use will spend a day or two in the fridge from the freezer and then 1 night in the lounge.

                These really do oil up and even stick to the can.

                We have a ‘bean archive’ in the coffee shop. These are single doses of frozen beans, vacuum packed (in a £30 ish machine) and frozen at a usual -18-20 degrees (ish), 10-14 days after roasting. We’ve been doing this for quite a while now and the main things we’ve learned are:

                The whole thing works better if you go straight from the freezer into the grinder. Freezing makes the coffee more brittle, so I suspect it is less stress on your grinder anyhow.

                Some people in the industry think that this brittleness leads to more uniform particle sizes, which in turn leads to more even extraction. This is tough to prove but what I would say is that we have used beans close to a year after freezing and they taste every bit as good as when the coffee was in peak condition.

                We do grind very slightly coarser for frozen beans and I’m not sure why this happens. We’re talking a small change, a couple of the smaller lines on an EK43. Which at a guess, is maybe less than a click coarser on a C40.

                Finally, when we were first exploring this whole area, we used this information from the guys at the Manchester Coffee Archive after meeting them at Cup North years back and having a very excitable (highly caffeinated) chat about it all.

                Thank you for all the input, comments and experiences! I am learning a lot in this forum as I trek to this coffee journey.