dick-san wrote:Thank you for all the insights and data -- I feel more comfortable about trying coffees from online roasters now.

Well get on over to the Soho Espresso "Best of Five" giveaway thread and get writing. You may win get a couple pounds free!

I have taken to vacuum packing my greens and putting them in the deep freeze (-30f) until needed. I retrieve the coffees that I need replenished, open the bag, put three pounds in a cotton drawstring bag, vacuum the bag again and back to the freezer. The greens are out of the freezer no longer than a few moments.

The green sit on the counter in their cotton bag to slowly thaw. I have not noticed any ill effects from the deep freeze. I have never tried to pack roasted coffee. I just roast what I need for four days, twice a week.

I order two one pound bags of Intelligentsia Black Cat whole bean every order and freeze one of the bags in a double freezer zip lock.

Doing this four times, I've noticed no difference between the frozen whole beans and the ones that I use right from the 'factory'.

I just finished my first lb of Intelligentsia espresso and loved it. With shipping $5 on a $12 lb of coffee, I was hoping to order 3-4 lbs at a time. Since these are roasted on a weekly basis, do they store well for weeks as long as you don't open the bag or is just ordering what I need for the next month the best? Thanks.

Dave

Some will disagree, but here is what I have been doing... it works for me.

I let the roasted beans rest for 3-4 days in the sealed bag. I place a piece of scotch tape over the one-way valve, and then I put the bag in the freezer until I need it. When I need it, I pull the bag out of the freezer, let it warm up a bit (to room temp if humid and I am getting condensation on the bag), pull the tape off the bag and just use it until it's gone. I pour 1-2 days worth in the grinder hopper, and leave the rest in the bag. The bag does not return to the freezer after opening.

Most of time, my beans aren't in the freezer for too very long. I try to order on the 1st and the 15th of the month, and between work, home and friends, I usually don't have anything in the freezer for more than ~3 weeks. I did however stock up during the holiday sales, and have a few pounds left in the freezer from that.

Thanks for the reply. I have one of those glass, air-tight containers to store extra beans at room temp. I thought I had read to not put beans in the freezer anymore or does that just apply to long term storage (weeks in the freezer)? Thanks.

Dave

.... merged new topic with a similar topic...

I rarely store coffee these days, freezer or otherwise, but at one time I routinely bought two pounds and divided it among eight glass Mason jars. The jars didn't have one way valves. I would carefully tap tap tap and refill to minimize the air space. Over the course of a month, I would remove and defrost each jar, each jar holding enough to last for a few days (hmm-m my consumption is much higher than 1/2 pound per week nowadays ).

The last jar of the month would "burp" when opened and the espresso tasted quite good. However, I haven't done a blind comparison between freezer beans stored a month versus freshly roasted. I would be interested in hearing your results.

Our home situation has been very unpredictable for the past couple of years; sometimes I am home, sometimes I am working away from home. Sometimes we have guests for the weekend.

There is no decent roaster where we live and I don't roast at home. Our roaster is 2000 miles away in Nebraska. So we have been freezing beans for up to 4 months beginning 2 years ago. Our "house blend" is Code Brown from Coffee Emergency, and I must say it does exceptionally well frozen up to 4 months. We freeze is in the mylar package in which it arrives, making sure that as much gas as possible has been expelled before we freeze it (it spends about 3 days in transit to California). We have also done the same with the Milano espresso blend from Paradise Coffee in Minnesota with great success.

If there is one downside to freezing coffee beans, I would say that the beans have a slightly shorter lifespan when they are frozen than when they are fresh, perhaps 10 days, as opposed to 14 or so. That seems to be a small price to pay for the convenience. I think that part of the trick is to keep water off of the beans so that there is no freezer burn. The valved bags keep air to a minimum and all of the moisture with it. For those times when we have small glass bottles, we have covered the beans with plastic wrap so that the water in the air above the beans condenses on the plastic and not the beans.

Ken K

after reading this thread i am more inclined to order roasted beans online. i have been buying my coffee from whole foods market, which i guess you would call an "organic grocery store" still relatively new to my area. they do have a roasting outfit there, from what the head roaster tells me its a 5 pound air roaster. the only problem is that they only have dark roasts (french and italian) for espresso blends which are a little too dark for my taste. it seems they have a medium roast. but it is not much if any lighter than the dark italian, however i am colorblind and that could be the problem. does anyone know of any roasters in the northeast which i could order online from? intelligentsia sounds appealing, but shipping cross country i would have to pay out the ears to get it here in a couple days. i see chris' coffee has a small roasting operation and the black pearl espresso blend seems like it would be good, and anyone speak to this?

thanks,
jeff

gtrman wrote:does anyone know of any roasters in the northeast which i could order online from? intelligentsia sounds appealing, but shipping cross country i would have to pay out the ears to get it here in a couple days. i see chris' coffee has a small roasting operation and the black pearl espresso blend seems like it would be good, and anyone speak to this?

Jeff, if shipping cost (and time) is of big concern, Tony at Caffe Fresco has it going on. Low cost USPS shipping and fast. I have ordered from Intelly, UPS shipment was pretty fast but more costly. Rocket Coffee had a shipment from AZ to NC in 3 days USPS IIRC and they have a free shipping promo right now on the Espresso Sampler (and that's a lot of coffee!). I have not tried the Black Pearl but should be worth a go.