I did a search of the various coffee freezing topics but could not find any discussion of this specific question, so my apologies if it has already been addressed. Is it a bad idea to defrost a frozen (taped valve) bag of roasted beans and re-freeze a portion of it in a mason jars after letting it defrost (using generally accepted freezing techniques)? Or am I better off breaking up all the bags immediately upon receipt from the roaster into smaller mason jars before the first freeze? If the latter, I am going to need a lot more mason jars and a lot more freezer space. I would like to be able to freeze/re-freeze but I'm not sure of the bad effects of doing so, if any.

Thanks in advance for your replies!!

Background/Protocol:
I usually purchase several 12oz. or 1lb. bags of roasted coffee from online vendors at a time (i.e. Redbird, Intelly, Metropolis, etc.), tape over the valve bags and throw in the freezer until ready for use. When pulling a bag out of the freezer, I let it defrost on the counter for a couple of hours, open the bag, put a day or two worth of beans in the hopper, and (currently) place the rest of the beans in a vacuum canister for use as needed.

The problem is that it usually takes me about 3-4 weeks to go through 1lb. of beans since I only make 1-3 doubles per day. I don't think the vac canister does a great job preserving the beans, certainly better than just leaving in the hopper, but not as good as the freezer. During the time it takes me to consume a bag, I do notice the coffee becomes a little stale towards the back end, which I would like to avoid.

Best solution is to drink more coffee.

It is better practice to subdivide into five to seven day lots for freezing. But if you have beans that have been out, and you are called away or find you don't need them for a few weeks, refreezing is certainly better than keeping them out. I've occasionally had to chuck such refrozen beans, but mostly they've been fine.

There is no free water in either roasted or green coffee, so freezing does not tear up the internal structure with crystallization as it does with soft foods. This means refreezing causes no extra physical damage; although I'm guessing the warming and cooling causes some slight degradation in other ways.

I just split the bags into 6oz portions in mason jars immediately upon recieving the bags and freeze the beans in the jars. This sounds a lot simpler than what you're proposing imo.

the 6oz portion is roughly what I use in a week.

I don't know if what I'm proposing sounds complicated. Basically I'm curious if freezing and re-freezing would be detrimental to the beans, given that the first freeze would take place in a taped valve bag and the second freeze would take place in a tightly packed mason jar. Given my consumption rate and that I order a few lbs. at a time to reduce my shipped cost, I would need to store about 15 small-ish mason jars in my freezer. This would take up A LOT more freezer space than a few valve bags. I'd love to be able to just keep the coffee in the valve bags, open one at a time as needed, and put the remainder into a mason jars at that time. BUT, not at the expense of degrading the coffee.

Jim - from your response it sounds like it should be fine, though I'm curious to know under what circumstances your refrozen beans needed to be discarded. Do you recall if there was anything different in your freezing/re-freezing process between when said beans were fine and when they were compost? Or perhaps it was due to the type of bean?

Thanks!!

Well, I think you might have problems... Recently I had complete stash in fridge packed in tightly sealed (but not vacuum packed) mason jars essentially go bad. The SO coffees that have very fine acidity lost it and interestingly every single coffee I took out lost acidity and was pulling on bitter side... And they were not in the fridge for that long, couple of weeks only... Visually shots were pulling just fine... I have no clue what happened.

There is no doubt in mind that even single freezing can affect beans let alone double freezing them.

This is one of those YMMV (Your Mileage My Vary) things, especially as taste is so subjective. I'd recommend that you put half your coffee in small 8 oz canning jelly jars and half in the bag and compare the methods to determine if you can taste the difference between the two methods. There's a pretty strong consensus that freezing roasted coffee beans from a larger order beats not freezing them, but even with this there is still debate on the effects of freezing on coffee.

My method is to split them up into canning jars and freeze them and take out a jar when necessary, but I've got a large collection of canning jars for roasted and green coffee beans and they do take up more room in jars. Only you can tell if you can taste the difference.

I do keep a jar of decaf in the freezer for company... I'll scoop out the required dose and throw the rest back in the freezer.

Another thing to consider is that the air in the jar contains water and as the beans get cooled down a condensation will form on them, then freeze, but I would guess that some will be absorbed by the beans.

If you then thaw and refreeze, you are just adding a second condensation cycle.

Even at the assumption of no water content at the beans themselves when they shipped to you, you might be collecting water as you freeze, thaw, and refreeze.

I may be wrong of course. I have not experimented with it. But... past history as a photographer and storing films in the fridge, that was an important consideration or you would ruin your films.

Your problem will come from condensation on the beans. I break them down into 1/3 pound batches then freeze those. Then I get a jar out the night before to warm up before I open it the next morning.