RioCruz wrote:So if freezing is a no-no to CC, then I would imagine double freezing would be a double no-no?

The response you got from CC is silly. The beans won't absorb moisture or odors if they are in a sealed container.

I often just put a rubber band around the lined paper bag the coffee came in and stuff it in the freezer. I've compared coffee stored this way with beans from the same coffee stored in a sealed container at room temperature. The casually stored freezer coffee tastes just as good at first and keeps that way for weeks, long after the room temperature stored coffee has declined.

Your mileage may vary.

TRUTH be told, I ignored CC's advice and always freeze their coffee when I get it. I put it in mason jars, take it out of the freezer to get the amount I want, then put it back in the freezer time after time. If there is any flavor loss, it escapes me.

creative nickname took the words right out of my mouth:

Maybe the guy from CC has a better palate than me, and so he notices differences that I wouldn't. Or maybe they've never tested freezing methods that use best practices like vacuum sealing the beans.LMWDP #435

My routine is to put my roasts in a metal airtight container with a valve immediately after roasting and cleaning. The next day rapidly pour into mason jar and use vacuum seal and into freezer immediately. This lasts in the freezer, sometimes for months, without noticeable degradation.


I keep enough out for a week or sometimes prepare it for refreezing.
Have been successful in taking a one quart jar, throwing half of my roast in along with other half enclosed in a one pint freezer bag. Weeks or months later rapidly take jar out of freezer, shake the loose beans into a plate, leave the pint jar in the quart and vacuum seal rapidly and rush back into freezer.

Less than 30 seconds? Probably, would be easy to time. Would have to have your food saver on counter beside freezer plugged in with mason jar cap ready.
Guess my wife is right, I am a fanatic

I strongly disagree with Jesse from CC. Or, in his defense, he figures he answered what he was asked. I am a huge Counter Culture fan.

instead of saying:

leave the pint jar in the quart and vacuum seal rapidly and rush back into freezer.

Leave the one pint freezer bag in the quart......and also further down in explanation.

sorry
gene

Hi All,
I'm down in SoCal now, and the experiment has begun -- although it's more of a trial by fire, but oh well.

First off, I must sheepishly disclose that I misspoke by referring to vac-seal. What I meant was just heat-seal. I don't think the average 3rd-wave coffee is vac-sealed on the shelf, though in the end my understanding is that it's more or less the same, as CO2 pushes the O2 out through the degas valve, thereby providing the same effect as a vacuum. But, in full disclosure -- that's what I meant. I don't vac-seal at home; just plain ol' open and close; which is why at home I would only freeze once. It's also why I was originally only planning on doing this with heat-sealed bags, although as noted below, I couldn't resist a certain Four Barrel item that I came upon by surprise.

Also, for the record --- I'm familiar with the earlier annals of HB freezing talk. That's how I came around to freezing in the first place, which for many years I thought was a no-no, until I did it right, on advice of the HB braintrust. There's not much back there about RE-freezing, though.

Regarding the CC reply -- With all due respect to CC and "Web Retail Customer Representatives" everywhere, I would tend to assume their job is more to track orders and recite product info, not necessarily to have in-depth knowledge of best practices beyond the point of sale. They may know and love coffee, but working at CC, how often would they personally need to freeze coffee? If it's not necessary, why do it? And if you don't do it yourself, why advise others to do it?

So anyhoo, yesterday I picked up a heat-sealed bag of 3-day-old Supersonic espresso blend from Copa Vida, taped over the valve and put it in the freezer here, inside an additional ziplock, just for good measure. Today I snagged a 5-day-old Four Barrel "Friendo Blendo" roll-down lined-paper bag (not heat-sealed), which I'm about to put in ziplock and freeze. I got the 4B from a Cognoscenti outpost and sampled a shot there. It was quite unlike other shots I've had so hopefully that stand-out will endure in my mind.

Herein lies the fault with my "experiment," as there's really no control. I've never even had anything from Supersonic before, so really I'll have nothing to compare it to, I'll only know whether I like it or not and how fast it goes stale once I've started using it.

When I get home, next time I'm lucky enough to find some of my familiar standby Hair Bender of reasonable freshness on the coop shelf, I'll buy 2 bags, brew one immediately and freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw the other. For thoroughness I know there should be a third bag that gets frozen only once, but if the double-freeze compares favorably enough to the never-frozen, the middle ground would be irrelevant.

SpromoSapiens wrote:Regarding the CC reply -- With all due respect to CC and "Web Retail Customer Representatives" everywhere, I would tend to assume their job is more to track orders and recite product info, not necessarily to have in-depth knowledge of best practices beyond the point of sale. They may know and love coffee, but working at CC, how often would they personally need to freeze coffee? If it's not necessary, why do it? And if you don't do it yourself, why advise others to do it?

In my experience customer service reps, like most roaster staff, are specifically instructed to tell customers not to freeze. This makes sense when the roaster is in your neighborhood, and you can pick up fresh coffee every week. Mail order is another matter entirely, where customers will almost inevitably save shipping costs by ordering more than they can consume in a week.

I think the no-freeze rule is based partly on "received wisdom" and partly on working in an environment where the coffee is always fresh, and no frozen coffee can match it. I am hopeful that the industry will begin to do a better job of testing home storage methods with an understanding that consumers are willing to trade off some quality in order to keep their mail order passion affordable.

At this point, there is a lot of industry focus on best packaging methods, but it is all focused on what happens before you take the bag home and open it.

There are extensive and detailed discussions of freezer storage of coffee, either green or roasted in the SM mailing list archives. The cliff notes would be that freezing extends useful life of either and extends the resting time required to reach the mythical target taste and vacuum bagging first helps this.

SpromoSapiens wrote:Hi All,
Also, for the record --- I'm familiar with the earlier annals of HB freezing talk. That's how I came around to freezing in the first place,

Then I assume you are familiar with the portion of the past discussions that point out that the only way beans can be kept at a stable freezing temperature in a household is in a chest freezer.
Whether they know it or not, all of the responders on this thread who freeze beans in their refrigerator freezers are freezing, thawing, refreezing beans on a daily basis since all refrigerator freezers that are frost free use this temperature cycling to keep ice from forming in the freezer section; only chest freezers do not cycle.
The temperature decrease and resumption in the refrigerator freezer may have a smaller amplitude than the refreeze situation that you are inquiring about but there are many such cycles to take into consideration compared to the one time freeze/refreeze about which you are inquring.

My guess is that if the beans are sealed against moisture the damage may be minimized.
With the exception of the limited research posted on HB by Ken, coffee freezing remains a 'terra incognita' due to the number of situational variables our individual coffee habits contribute to the mix.
My suggestion is to: 1) sample the roast at the point of sale for a baseline, 2) divide the purchase in half and freeze half and carry half, and 3) make your own comparisons once you arrive home.
Over time, you will amass enough experience to start another thread and educate us about the results.
With Kindness,
Buckley

BuckleyT wrote:... My suggestion is to: 1) sample the roast at the point of sale for a baseline, 2) divide the purchase in half and freeze half and carry half, and 3) make your own comparisons once you arrive home.
Over time, you will amass enough experience to start another thread and educate us about the results.
With Kindness,
Buckley

This has been done. These experiments are documented in the SM list archives, as I mentioned above, including the actual true freezer vs ice-free freezer. Reducing both the peak and average temperature reduces the oxidation rate.

I don't remember if anyone attempted storage inside sealed containers submerged into liquid nitrogen though.

We bought a chest freezer for this reason (and because my wife was tired of how much freezer space my coffee occupied). Once we had one, we used it for many other things, and couldn't imagine how we'd ever done without.