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  • Coffee best before dates

Hi all,

I had a client message me not long ago asking about our best before date. We give a roast date on the bag and say ‘best within 3 months’. They asked why we say 3 months as it is significantly longer than other roasters say. Some being 4 weeks. A fair question to ask but -

Whilst at 3 months coffee will not be at its absolute peak it will still be more than enjoyable if it has been stored correctly in my experience. I frequently drink coffee a couple of months post roast.

I often have lots of other roasters coffee about the place so took a look at some bags and whilst some had the same best before as us, one of them did say 4 weeks. To me this seems bordering on profligate.

Do people really ditch coffee sealed in a bag at 4 weeks post roast?

    BlackCatCoffee Do people really ditch coffee sealed in a bag at 4 weeks post roast?

    Absolutely not. I have had 2 KGs of beans sent with best before. Both were medium dark, if not dark roasts. Upon enquiry, we were advised they were roasted 1 month in advance. Assuming they were correct, we did freeze the coffee and consumed. The coffee from the bags was fine but had plenty of beehive hanging after a shot was pulled.

    Most of the coffee beans bag carry the date as best consumed in 2 - 3 months from the roast date. However, as you noted, they are excellent even after 3 months - if stored properly. In fact, we still have some frozen bags dated August. I opened one yesterday. The aroma, the freshness and the coffee on the whole were excellent.

      The thing is, if you start with an amazingly roasted bean that tastes heavenly a week after roast, that same bean will still taste good after 2 months stored correctly BUT it won’t be heavenly, just good. You do lose flavour with age, but with a good bean there’s enough flavour to lose until you start to really notice.

      The real question is why would you buy expensive speciality coffee that has lost some of its flavour and is only just good? Might as well buy cheaper beans if you can’t assure its at its peak.

      Not sure freezing counts as a storage solution for most products (meat frozen for weeks will be absolutely fine but try putting that on an expiry or best-before date for your steak). Seems to me that beans for espresso regularly go south after roughly three weeks because of degassing - shots will often be underextracted/will channel etc. So perhaps it really depends on brew method?

      Something past the best before date should logically be different from the ‘consume by’ date - coffee is still plenty drinkable at four weeks but it would be far from best after six, I would wager, unless frozen. I think the phrase ‘best before’ actually has more meaning for coffee than for most other products!

      BlackCatCoffee Do people really ditch coffee sealed in a bag at 4 weeks post roast?

      I regard Best Before Date as a very general recommendation, sometimes as a legal requirement, and use common sense instead. It makes no sense to me to through away good food (fruit, cheese, whatever) because the date on it has passed, just as it would be silly to eat bad food because the date says it is fresh. I know what food should look/taste/smell like, and I use my senses to decide if it is good or not (this Christmas my daughter’s boyfriend almost through away a whole brie because the date has past. It hadn’t even started to ripen at that stage….)

      Back to coffee. For me the only relevant date is the roast date. The pack can say it’s good for 4 weeks, 3 months, a year or whatever - I would ignore that, because for me it is meaningless. I know 3 months old (or a year old) coffee won’t kill me, but I would expect it to be passed it’s peak if it was that old. Then I would taste it, and see if I like it or not (but I wouldn’t buy it if it was already approaching 3 months from roast date). I expect people who buy specialty coffee from roasters such as yourself, as opposed to those who buy at the supermarket, would know that and be the same as me, but maybe I am wrong? Sorry if this isn’t very helpful.

        @BlackCatCoffee, Personally I don’t see the issue. The supermarkets reckon a year at least. You roast fresh and put the roast date, so people can make their own judgement.

        I think the biggest deterioration in taste comes from opening a bag of beans and then not storing it correctly. I had some coffee roasted on December 17th and I had drunk half the bag, but then it got pushed to the back of the worktop in my admittedly rather messy kitchen. All that time it had been just stored in its original packaging with a clothes peg on the top. I had to throw it away when I made a pourover last week as it was undrinkable. However, I then found some unopened beans in the cupboard roasted a month earlier (mid November) and it tasted fine. I have now put that away from light in an airtight container so hopefully it will last a bit longer.

          As with all food and drink, I work on the basis that if it looks and smells ok then I’ll use it regardless of date.

          OK, but let’s get to the heart of this thread! Nobody has answered the question in the title! What coffee should you drink before a big date!! I haven’t dated in 42 years, since I’m married, but you single Coffeetime posters really need to weigh in on this one…especially on Valentine’s Day!

          I’ve never really paid too much attention the the best before date on coffee I’ll leave it to rest for a week after roasting and then it either goes in an airscape / equivalent container and in a cupboard in 250g batches with the rest being frozen and used when the other 250g are finished. I’ll typically get through 250g in about 2 weeks (I have two coffees a day with alternate beans).

          Life’s too short for worrying about it any more but not sure why a roaster would print a best before 4 weeks on their coffee.

          When I first read this thread subject I thought you meant the best coffee to drink before going on a date.., you know, the one that will give you the best kick, have you fully wired, give you that old Dutch Courage… a sort of legal upper.

          19 days later

          What do you guys suggest for the degassing period for decaf beans after roast date? … Considering decaf beans go stale quicker than regular.

            BlackCatCoffee yes siree I would ditch most beans at 4 weeks. My milestones are:

            Dark: rest one week, then enjoy for 10 days after

            Medium: rest two weeks, then enjoy for 20 days after

            Light: rest three weeks, then enjoy for 30 days after

            I’m quite fussy though. I’m only interested in espresso at its peak. Others will enjoy well beyond my dates either because they don’t taste a difference or becaause they simply still enjoy it.

            I’ve based the above guidelines on a log I kept of over 100 at-home roasts. For the majoity of them I started tasting after seven days and kept sampling each day, noting when I felt that a bean hit full flavor and the day/s it tasted past it’s peak.

            I have settled on the phrase “best between” to descrribe the date range where I think the flavor will be at its peak.

            Vacuum sealing individual 18 gram portions at the start of the “enjoy” phase adds another two weeks on to the peak flavor duration. Foe example dark roasts go from 10 days to 24 days.

              drdre89 Decaf reamins a mystery to me but if you start tasting them on say day 7 and keep a note each day of your flavor impressions, you’ll soon have your answer. Very likely you will notice a higher volume of coffee in your cup at the same time that you notice a thinning of the flavor, assuming you keep the same grind size..

                I tend to degass for 7 days (medium roast decaf) and then portion then out and pop in the freezer, as decaf tends to be more for visitors than me. I then grind from frozen.

                As I tend to buy a kilo at a time (for free shipping), I tend to just let other beans degas for at least 1 week, and then they just get used at whatever my rate of consumption is (normally 250g per week if just me, but with guests it goes up). This means they typically are drunk within 6 weeks of roast date. Taste wise I actually think they suffer more by using too early than too late (within this window of time).

                  hornbyben I find that grinding from frozen leaves a bit of retention in my Niche. It gets a bit messy with static as well. Because decaf are darker oily beans I am guessing.

                  It’s a much cleaner grind when grinding at room temperature.