Questions for those who freeze coffee still in the bag...

by **mmm** on Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:32 am

Say you freeze fresh coffee (~2 days after roast) still in the roaster's bag with tape over the one-way valve and decide to use it 5 days after that. Once you remove the bag from the freezer, open it, and transfer it to mason/air-tight jars, is it best to not put the jars in the freezer again? Leave them out? Also, once you take the bag out of the freezer, should you wait for it to get to room temperature before opening it?

Just thought I'd ask as I plan on getting an extra bag or two of beans next week and wasn't sure.

by **darrensandford** on Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:39 am

When you take it out of the freezer, leave it to warm to room temperature before you open it, otherwise you will get condensation on the beans, spoiling them.

The beans I have frozen in the past have outgassed aggresively on taking them out (frozen a day or two after roasting), so bear that in mind when putting them in airtight containers.

by **cafeIKE** on Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:52 pm

It takes about 6 hours for a 1# bag of beans to reach room temperature from -20°C.

If you are buying coffee with 1-way valves, cut them out of the bag, punch a hole in the mason jar lid and glue on the valve.

FWIW, its probably a better idea to split the bags into jars before freezing. Use air tight lids.

As an experiment, last week I put several jars in the freezer, one with an unsealed 1-way valve. This morning I tried the unsealed jar. That's $7 I'll never get back. :cry:

by **roblumba** on Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:15 pm

Yeah, for coffee that I freeze, I put them in mason jars WITHOUT the one way valve. I tried taping over the one way valve and that didn't see to work so well for me. Perhaps the pressurization in a jar without the one way valve helps keep it fresher, I don't know. But after experiencing one batch that went bad with the jars that had tape over the valves, I'm never doing that again.

Bags in mason jars without the one way valve are staying in good shape for even more than 4 weeks.

by **TimEggers** on Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:10 pm

I just pulled a pound of Redline out of the ol' freeze (in original bag with one-way valve) and its absolutely horrid. That's an expensive lesson to learn (and Redline is such a nice blend too). :cry:

by **Climb14er** on Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:42 pm

I've been freezing very high quality espresso in the bag, with the one way valve, all placed within two zip lock freezer bags.

When ready to thaw, I remove the bag and let it come to room temp. I then open the original bag and let the valve do its thing.

I have noticed absolutely zero loss of quality freezing, thawing and using the coffee this way mentioned.

YMMV but for me, my Macap and Cremina utilize these same beans to obtain excellent espresso. :wink:

by **jesawdy** on Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:00 am

I split immediately upon arrival into small Mason jars. I don't have enough small jars so some of the beans go into larger jars. I skip the one-way valve altogether and use the air tight Mason lids. One word of caution, with larger jars that have been in the freezer for an extended time (say greater than a month), you need to be careful when you pop the top. I've been caught off guard a few times and you can get a shower of coffee beans :oops:

.

by **JimWright** on Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:25 am

I put a couple of bags of Ecco Reserve in the freezer last month. I'd never tried it before, but I ordered it with the experimental blend and wanted to have at that first. Unlike the experimental blend, Ecco does not put their regular blends (including the Reserve) into bags with one way valves, and when I took them out, I had a lot of trouble getting something I liked out of them. Would the lack of a one-way valve adversely influence the effect of freezing?

by **roblumba** on Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:15 pm

I think with freezing you basically want an air tight package. I suspect that the pressure buildup from slight degassing, in an airtight container actually enhances it's shelf life in the freezer. I don't have any science to back it up, but that's just my generally feeling. Whenever I take a jar out of the freezer that gives a little pop when I open it, It seems very consistent that those beans are much fresher tasting and behave better during extraction.

by **JohnB.** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:41 pm

I break the 1lb bags down into 2 double shot portions, vacuum bag & freeze when it arrives. (usually 2-3 days after roast). This way I only remove what I'm going to be using within a few hours & it will come up to room temp within a few minutes. The small bags are much easer to deal with in my freezer (space wise) then jars & I never have to worry about dropping one.

by **Marshall** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:53 pm

JohnB. wrote:I break the 1lb bags down into 2 double shot portions, vacuum bag & freeze when it arrives. (usually 2-3 days after roast). This way I only remove what I'm going to be using within a few hours & it will come up to room temp within a few minutes. The small bags are much easer to deal with in my freezer (space wise) then jars & I never have to worry about dropping one.

What is the advantage of using a vacuum bag?

by **JimWright** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:02 pm

Yeah, I've been thinking about this (re: vacuum bag) - ever since that thread from a few days/weeks ago on coffee freshness, and reading that positive pressure in a can is the best way to keep the coffee fresh, I've been wondering. Why would you put coffee in a vacuum bag? I've seen beans roaster-packaged in bags that appear to have been vacuum sealed, with one way valves, and I'm guessing that I must be missing something, but wouldn't the vacuum actually accelerate the degassing process, rather than preserving the coffee?

by **Marshall** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:15 pm

JimWright wrote:I'm guessing that I must be missing something, but wouldn't the vacuum actually accelerate the degassing process, rather than preserving the coffee?

I think it either makes no difference (because the contents are frozen) or is a negative (because it accelerates outgassing).

by **JohnB.** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:18 pm

As with anything you freeze removing the air in the packaging will extend the shelf life. Vacuum bagging meats extends its freezer life from 6 months to a year. As air is the enemy of fresh roasted coffee removing it, even if its only stored for a week or two is a good idea.

by **JimWright** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:12 pm

Hmmm. I get the whole "air is bad" thing (reacts with oils), but to the extent a vacuum would accelerate degassing (esp. when on a shelf, before freezing) and its attendant effects, this seems like a significant tradeoff versus packaging with an inert gas under positive pressure. I guess it's not possible to do this in a bag? (Cans are presumably substantially more expensive, although they can be recycled, and I'd guess the readers here would happily pay the difference...)

by **JohnB.** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:37 pm

Well as I understand it the crema is CO2 & since I can still get good crema from a shot pulled from vacuum bagged beans stored in the freezer for 6-8 weeks I have to wonder how much CO2 is actually removed by the vacuum process. The foodsaver is not exactly sucking the life out of the beans when you process the bag. It is a slow, gentle process that stops as soon as the air is removed.

by **roblumba** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:36 pm

a bunch of 8 ounce mason jars are cheap and those jars are extremely durable. I drop them routinely. Each jar holds about 3.5 double shots.

I suspect the food saver is overkill considering you have to heat seal the ends and spend money on buying their special plastic bags. A bunch of full mason jars should only take up slightly more space than the bags, it's just a matter of stacking them efficiently. And they are reusable over and over again. Half of my mason jars have one way valves on them that I use for fresh coffee that I plan to use without freezing.

by **JohnB.** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:22 pm

roblumba wrote:I suspect the food saver is overkill considering you have to heat seal the ends and spend money on buying their special plastic bags.

I suspect many consider the GS3 overkill but people still buy them.

The thing I like least about the mason jar full of beans is that once you remove it from the freezer you have a jar full of beans sitting there slowly getting staler each time you open & reseal. The more beans you use the more air in the jar. If you can use a jar full in a day or so thats not a big issue but I prefer to use up what I take out of the freezer within a few hours.

by **JimWright** on Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:18 pm

Wait, you make less than 3 doubles at a time? :mrgreen:

by **darrensandford** on Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:13 am

Thinking about the whole vacuum bag thing.

My personal thought is that it is a good idea. I don't imagine that a vacuum bag creates a large negative pressure on the beans, and the amount of "space" for the vacuum to occupy in the bag is very small compared to the amount of CO2 that is outgassed as the coffee is stored, so the amount that outgassing is accelerated will be minimal. There must be a net benefit to removing the oxygen.


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