SORRY to raise an old question - FREEZING.!

scwheeler

I was in Rosslyn recently and was surprised to see they have a frozen bean ‘expensive’“ vault with coffees from several years ago. I’m sure they know their stuff and it must taste good but I’ve never personally gone past 6 months before it’s been drunk

memzey

I regularly grind straight from frozen. I don’t see an issue with it tbh. In fact, it’s pretty central to my workflow.

Here is what I do; I will typically allow a bag to off-gas until it’s in it’s peak and then freeze it. For everyday coffee, that my wife an I have in the morning, I dose out into individual bean cellars which live on the counter top. I top these up from the frozen bag every few days (so they are defrosted when ground). As I’ve normally got a few different varieties on the go at any one time, it might take a couple of months get through a 1kg bag and I don’t notice any deterioration or staling of the frozen beans in that time.

I also keep a few bags of other coffees, like decafs or funky interesting options, permanently frozen. These I freeze as individual doses in sample tubes, to avoid weighing them out each time (so they are ground frozen). Again, I wait until they have off gassed before my initial freeze. These can stay in the freezer for many, many months and I haven’t noticed a drop off.

The key, I think, to this approach is to dial in the coffee with the bean in the state you will grind it in. That is to say, if you will always grind the bean frozen, freeze them before you dial your recipe in. If they will be defrosted, then defrost and dial in. Seems obvious but you would be surprised…

Anyway, YMMV but this system works for me.

FadedFrontiers

As the others have mentioned, grinding straight from frozen is the way to do it or dividing up into single doses then defrosting individually. Chances are they’ll still taste great even over a year later, welcome back and enjoy!

yardbent

thanks for all the replies

well I took a 200g vacuum packed bag from the freezer and am allowing to thaw

maybe against all the advice to grind while frozen :-(

I’ve just ordered 12 × 100g sample packs to see what my taste buds are like after a 12month lay-off

tip === NEVER drink hospital coffee…I ‘survived’ (sic) on protein drinks

these I will freeze loose in their valved bags - not my vacuum bags

thanks again for all the advice

Adrianmsmith

I have been freezing mine for years as I buy 1 kilo bags and quite often more than one at a time.

I did not realise you were supposed to go into coffee bollocks territory and have vacuum machine and bags.

I simply squeeze the air out of mine and use the zip tie bag or a stainless bulldog clip if it has no zip tie.

I then transfer into a small airscape container from the freezer and weigh out into my glass jars. These were just cheap glass jars holding 23g max from Amazon, not coffee bollocks ones!

This gives me 3 to 4 days in the eirscape container.

I have never noticed any bad flavours or deterioration creeping in and I’m really not sure what a difference vacuum packing would make that does seem an unnecessary step especially as I have never thought that something is off.

I usually put them in the freezer around 8 days after roasting date.

yardbent

@Adrianmsmith

hi… interesting

last year my routine was to store the 250g in an AirScape

pour about 40-50g into the Eureka grinder hopper

tare the portafilter on scales…add 20g grinds…then add to my Gaggia

1 × 20g daily so the remaining beans were in the hopper for 24hrs

anything to improve,,?

…i wonder if 20g in a glass tube would give me 20g in the porta filter cos the grinder tends to retain some of the grind

@DavecUK

why is my text double spaced….?

Zephyp

I buy beans for 2 months use at the time and freeze everything after degassing a week or two, then dose straight from the freezer. No vacuum or taking out larger amounts, but I do tape over the valve. I open the bag, remove 15 g, squeeze out air, replace the bag and grind. I open the bag inside the chest freezer to avoid pulling room tempered air into the bag.

dfk41

Zephyp I often wonder if freezing actually does anything? I often rest beans for 3 weeks and drink them over another 3 weeks without freezing. Whilst we assume that deep freezing allows you to store things does it really though?

Pompeyexile

dfk41

Worked for Disney😁

FadedFrontiers

dfk41 I often wonder if freezing actually does anything? I often rest beans for 3 weeks and drink them over another 3 weeks without freezing. Whilst we assume that deep freezing allows you to store things does it really though?

Test it for yourself and see, I’ve done side by side tastings with the same beans and find that for espresso, frozen beans often taste better versus fresh beans once they pass around the month mark. They also produce a nicer looking shot with better crema too if that makes any difference to you, which at the very least shows the freezing does actually make a difference. For filter you can get more time out of them of course.

Zephyp

dfk41 I find that the beans stay more fresh and tasty by freezing them and slowing down degradation. Not that they go bad in room temperature over a short period of time, but losing nuances. The bags are quite expensive as far as coffee goes and I want to make the most out of my beans.

I also like to use 2-3 different types of beans at once, and they degrade faster after opening and constantly being exposed to air.

dfk41

FadedFrontiers Test it for yourself and see,

I have no need to! The system I use works well for me. I dislike anything in life that adds extra layers into procedures!

FadedFrontiers

dfk41 have no need to! The system I use works well for me. I dislike anything in life that adds extra layers into procedures!

Fair enough, I don’t do it all the time - only when I have multiple bags open at once really, but to go back to your original point it definitely makes a difference to bean freshness, espresso shot crema and most importantly taste.