jkoll42 wrote:To clarify your original post. Is the farm market wanting to sell the coffee to customers in the mason jars or is this to store it until purchase? The reason I ask is that will be some expensive coffee if you have to factor in the $1.50 or so per jar and $10 for a vacuum lid! Maybe I am misunderstanding something

Yes the market wants to sell the coffee in the jars. Since I'm not sure how long the jars will remain unsold, i.e. days, weeks, months, and they will be exposed to light I decided to vacuum seal them. I started with 8 jars delivered today. I'll call on Monday to see how they sold. Given I just started this process, I'm sure I'll learn as I go.

BTW, KMart.com has a case of 12 one quart wide-mouth jars with lids and rings for $10.99 plus tax and free pick-up at a local store. I ordered 2 cases this afternoon and got an e-mail 2 hours later telling me they were available for pick-up, total damage was $23.10, the cheapest price I found for authentic Ball brand. I bought my other cases from my local Wally World, but they only carry them in the summer and early fall (harvest time) and they're not competitive on line.

If that's what they want then thats what they get! Good price on the jars. I think what you are doing is a good plan. As others have said I would not be concerned about the jars bursting from pressure.

Sort of off topic but I work for a local farmers market vendor and I know we can only sell locally grown/produced products. I'm working if that is not the case in this situation or maybe because they are roasted locally that counts.

I don't want to facilitate thread drift, but it's a question I've posed before (or meant to !?!):

does the pressure effect the degassing?

i.e. - will the flavor of a coffee that was "burped" be different than if the jar was sealed as tightly as possible? day 2? day 5?

I theorize that the beans would emit less gas under pressure, but I dunno. There are always a lot of minds smarter than mine around here

I agree that I wouldn't worry about breaking the jars. I don't think the seal, even when cranked down pretty good, would allow for enough pressure to build to break the glass.

Congrats on selling some of your beans. It sounds like you've gone from a hobbyist to a professional!

Ericg13 wrote:Sort of off topic but I work for a local farmers market vendor and I know we can only sell locally grown/produced products. I'm working if that is not the case in this situation or maybe because they are roasted locally that counts.

Good point. Since coffee is very problematic to grow in most US states, with the exception of Hawii (I've never seen NJ coffee), I think it's understood the coffee wasn't grown in Maryland. However, in this case, it was roasted (processed) within 5 miles of that market. So, it's in keeping with the local vendor philosophy in my view.

A mason jar will take a lot of pressure. Consider that during the canning process, the jars are boiled to raise the temperature in the jars and expand any air in them. While boiling the jars you will actually see bubbles rolling up from the jars as the heated/expanding air in the jar escapes. Then when removed and cooled they draw a vacuum to preserve the contents. They are designed to take a lot of pressure. Once sealed, you can actually remove the rings from the jars as the vacuum pressure keeps the seal tightly attached to the jar. I remove the retention rings to keep them from rusting onto the jar. If you get a bad batch and something funky does grow inside, the vacuum will be lost and the seal will actually pop off. Then you know it is trash. Bit off topic but I thought I would toss that in. But to your question, I would not worry about jars exploding from the degas.

Interesting Dave. Thanks.

also i was wondering what you used to roast?