I have the good fortune of having a local coffee roaster open an outlet just down the road from where I live, and who sell so much coffee all they sell is beans roasted fresh daily. But I shop only every two weeks, so I wanted to a way to ensure the consistency of the beans during that period. I'd read the study where beans were vacuum sealed and frozen, and how that did the trick, but I wanted a faster, less-messy method.

I was able to find a Handheld Foodsaver at Amazon; the fact that it's turned out (so far) be a very effective, easy-to-use tool is the reason for this thread. I would have posted earlier, but it seems the Handheld has been discontinued, so I didn't want to cruelly extol the virtues of a tool that couldn't be bought anywhere. On a hunch I emailed the seller at Amazon to see if he had access to more, and by chance he'd made a deal for an option to buy a few hundred more units. I'll include information on purchasing the handheld at the end of this post.

Basically, this preserving technique uses wide mouth mason jars, the handheld device, and a Foodsaver jar vacuum sealer attachment. . . .



To seal, place Foodsaver attachment on lid and jar . . .



. . . place tip of Foodsaver Handheld into the attachment hole, press the button for a few seconds until the green light on top of the unit comes on:



It seals in a few seconds -- very fast, very easy to use, very little counter space sacrificed. I store my reserve coffee beans in quart mason jars, leaving room at the top of the jar since degassing beans have loosened the vacuum seal (I also degas fresh coffee for a few days before sealing, and check the seals every few days on the mason jars, plus I secure the lids on the reserve beans with the bands that come with the jars in case degassing works to pop the seal).

Here's a cool, inexpensive device for removing the pressurized lid, which can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GFIQKA/ref=ox_ya_oh_product



I now seal nuts, cereals, flour etc. in jars not, plus I like the bottle sealers for preserving olive oil and open wine:



Anyway, the results have been awesome, absolutely no loss of freshness that I can detect, so much so I don't bother to freeze the beans after sealing. Beans grind on the same setting two weeks later as they did on the first day. The guy selling them, Michael Sustar, claims his Handheld has lasted him 9 months so far with heavy usage; I haven't used it myself long enough to say how it will last.

You can email Michael Sustar here: sustarhealth@aol.com I suggested he make a package deal for Home-Barista, so he's offering the Foodsaver, a wide-mouth sealing attachment, and shipping for $60. Here's a link to the product at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tilia-FoodSaver-H ... 00066N5SM/

Good luck!

Hi les

I also vacuum seal and then freeze. I vacuum seal everytime coffee everytime I open the canister. This is what I use:

http://www.amazon.com/Vacuvin-288348-va ... 88&sr=8-32

It vacuum seals by hand in less than three seconds. Very fast and handy plus it protects from light.

Cheers

I adjusted my original post after being advised there is a much better way to remove lids under vacuum pressure (see above) that doesn't damage the lids (so they can be reused over and over). If you didn't see my first solution . . . never mind!

An old fashioned bottle opener works good as well. You just have to be light handed so you dont bend the lid.