So I picked up a pound of The Boss while down in San Jose this weekend and I noticed that Barefoot has fancy new bags. Unfortunately (I think... maybe?), the new bags do not have a one-way valve anymore.

Anyone know the thinking behind this?

They are completely airtight and allow for freezing much easier. I always preferred them to valve + tape method. I'm not sure if that's their thinking, but I wonder more how the bags wouldn't be huge pillows if they roasted and bagged immediately. Probably bagging on day 2 would help with that effect and hopefully not make much of a difference.

But since I home roast these days I have just been using glass jars + freezing when necessary, and ziplock valved bags for beans that are room temp.

Hmmmm. I wonder if sealing them up early without a valve, resulting in positive pressure in the bag, actually causes the coffee to degas less quickly? (See, e.g., positive pressure nitrogen cannisters from Illy.) Or perhaps you're right Andre that they're letting them degas for a day or two before bagging - the bags didn't seem too puffy on the shelf.

Then again, if there's a bunch of oxygen in there after initial degassing, as opposed to an inert gas, this would presumably contribute to earlier oxidation, which I guessed was the reason to use the valves in the first place...

What do our resident coffee chemists think here? Anyone from Barefoot (Andy?) want to chime in about a reason for the switch, other than perhaps less expensive bags? (Not saying that less expensive bags is necessarily problematic, just wondering if there's some other reasoning at work.)

Or you could be simply over thinking this. I am sure a generic heat seal bag-roll is much cheaper than a speciality one way valve coffee bag-roll. It could simply be an economic move to save 50 cents a bag in cost (or a quarter or whatever that valve costs to make and put in the bag).

Could be Dave! That's why I asked. (They're not heat seal bags BTW, but lined valveless fold-over bags.)

JimWright wrote:Could be Dave! That's why I asked. (They're not heat seal bags BTW, but lined valveless fold-over bags.)

If they're just folded over and not sealed, why would you need a one way valve? the fold-over's don't seal that well.

shadowfax wrote:If they're just folded over and not sealed, why would you need a one way valve? the fold-over's don't seal that well.

Droshi wrote:They are completely airtight and allow for freezing much easier. I always preferred them to valve + tape method.

Apparently there is some disagreement on this point!

JimWright wrote:Apparently there is some disagreement on this point!

Considering he is in Isreal, I am in Texas, and you are in California (and just bought a bag?), seems like you ought to be able to answer this question conclusively; I was just speaking generically.

Well, I wonder whether there is really any measurable benefit to the valved bags in the first place - does immediate bagging in sealed and valved bags substantially slow down degassing and therefore staling while the coffee is on the shelf?

If so, it seems it would behoove folks to make sure to get the newer bags off the shelf in the cafe now, esp. if you're not going to consume it all immediately - not that this crowd probably doesn't so that already... but I've noticed that there are often bags of 10 day old and 3 day old on the shelf at the same time in the cafe.

Ritual doesn't use valved bags either, but Intelly and Vivace do, so hmmmm.

Valved bags do not prevent degassing. They simple retard oxidation.

The point is that as the coffee degases, oxygen in the bag is displaced by CO2. A valve bag ought to have a lower concentration of oxygen than a non-valve bag.