Fellow Bean Freezers - A question for you

OldGregg

To the other folks that buy in bulk and store their beans in the freezer- Whats the longest you would (or have) stored beans in the freezer for. I find that my curiosity for new beans and roasters outpaces my ability to consume them and have quite a “backlog” to get through.

I recently took a roast out that reached the 6 month mark in the freezer, and to my dismay was very undrinkable. This is a roast that I’ve purchased dozens of times in the past and always found to be great.

dutchy101

Interesting. I’ve taken to vacuum sealing before freezing but I have some older beans in the freezer that were put there before I started doing this. Some must be approaching the 4 or 5 month mark now. I’ll dig some of the older ones out next time I need some.

Do you squeeze out all of the air from the bag and seal up the valve before freezing?

OldGregg

dutchy101
I actually portion them out into canning jars, roughly 200g’s per jar. This has never been an issue as I normally consume them within a few months. This was just the longest I had ever gone, but my understanding was that they could theoretically last much longer.

PortafilterProcrastinator

I used to put 1kg into 100g freezer bags, squeeze the air out and seal.

Then I’d defrost and use as I went.

Seemed to work, but had a niggle. Was never really satisfied towards the end of a batch. That would only be about 4 weeks.

These days I still divvy up into 100g bags but I keep them in an airscape until I need them. 100g lasts 2-3 days.

I prefer the taste and for me results are more consistent all the way to the end.

I think the defrost can be the issue.

A few people have said they grind straight from frozen and that works well.

prezes

No issues at my end. Back in January I removed a packet roasted beginning of December and I was happy with it. The setting on the grinder was the same as well.

I vacuum pack and freeze in roughly daily amount 60-80g .

OldGregg

prezes

80g a day! I use a fraction of that. I guess so far no one has tested anything frozen that was older than 6 months?

MediumRoastSteam

OldGregg I have. I vacuum packed it and froze. Tastes very good as if our of the bag when originally roasted… but it will decay faster once open.

Admin

MediumRoastSteam I have. I vacuum packed it and froze. Tastes very good as if our of the bag when originally roasted… but it will decay faster once open.

I always wondered why that is?

MediumRoastSteam

Admin - No idea.

Hotmetal

Sounds like another good reason to skip cryonics then! Get defrosted, wake up in Russia or the US, and start decaying! 🤣

tompoland

Here you go @OldGregg

https://www.ielogical.com/coffee/FrzCalc/FrzCalc.php

I’ve no idea if that will shed any light on the issue for you but there is also a link on that page to a HB thread on the merits of freezing beans.

John_Yossarian

tompoland it is nteresting how does one measure “0.05 g increase for medium roast” when the precision of grinders is significantly less than that?

tompoland

John_Yossarian it’s beyond me John.

Cuprajake

Fwiw I didn’t like freezing my beans, I did a batch and wasn’t too impressed. So now I just order what I need

tompoland

Works very well for me.

FWIW there are two things I needed to tweak before I got consistently tasty espresso.

I make sure that the containers are air tight (moisture is not helpful) and very importantly I grind while still frozen.

Cuprajake

I can see the merit in freezing, it allows you to jump on deals when they come up, I even vac packed, but I did full 250g rather than 89g or smaller

tompoland

I use freezing for overflow. Because I roast, judging the quantity is hard to get right especially when we get visitors or I have a new grinder or machine to test … that chews up the beans. So I roast more than I need and use the freezer rather than have them go stale. Quite useful to have.

mobius

Do you degas for any length of time, before freezing ? I imagine that could also make a difference, due to the carbon dioxide content also being frozen.

tompoland

mobius absolutely. I freeze when they beans hit peak flavor which is typically around 18 days post roast for medium roasted beans. And if I am using frozen beans then I grind them while still frozen because I find that the espresso loses body and flavor otherwise.

CristianH

You could try a simple experiment, take a bag of beans and freeze only half of it after 2-3 weeks of roasting. Then brew both fresh and frozen to see if you notice any difference. I tried this some time ago and I noticed there was slightly less flavour in the frozen beans. Still a good shot, and probably if not comparing the two side by side I wouldn’t have noticed any difference just out of memory.