Couple of questions:

• If you use Mason jars, what size jar do you use? IOW, how do lbs translate to volume?
• Do you just fill to the brim, or do you vacuum seal using something like this?

I'm in Phoenix and so moisture in the air leading to condensation is not quite the problem it would be ... well, anywhere else (4% humidity is not uncommon), so the main advantage of vacuum packing would be to eliminate oxygen. Someone suggested flushing the jar with nitrogen, but I'll bet pressurized nitrogen will contain more moisture than the air it displaces (here, anyway).

I could also store the coffee in our wine cellar which is a constant 55 degrees F and dark, but my guess is that there'll be less aging if frozen.

Thoughts?

Mason jars = wide-mouth, freezer; pint (16 oz.)

I have been just filling-and-closing, but I got a vacuum sealer for the the holidays, and will start that in January.

Store in the freezer, not the wine cellar.

Regarding mason jars, my favorite size is the 12 oz. jar. It takes about 4 of these to cover a full pound of coffee, 3 to cover a more-common 12 oz. bag. It's a PITA to portion out a coffee order in those, but it's nice to be able to only have 2 days of coffee out at a time. The pint jars are ok too. IIRC it takes 3 to cover a pound, 2 for a 12 oz. bag. Note, coffee varies widely in volume per unit of weight depending on roast and to a lesser extent origin/variety. Darker roasts take considerably more space and may exceed my above guidance.

+1000 to freezing, cold as you can get it. The wine cooler will be marginally better than room temperature storage at best.

shadowfax wrote:+1000 to freezing, cold as you can get it. The wine cooler will be marginally better than room temperature storage at best.

FWIW according to studies done many moons ago by Michael Sivetz -40f is the magic number to 100% halt aging in roasted coffee. Much lower than typical home freezers! That said I've tested and pulled 90% crema shots that tasted delish coffee vac sealed and frozen over a year home freezer around 0f.

The coffee I freeze won't be hanging around for a year.

I've decided purchasing and cycling 5 lbs at a time may be the way to go. This means that each batch will probably last me about 4 weeks. I'd order a new variety about 3 weeks in from when I received the last. I figure I'll rotate maybe 3-4 varieties at most, and this will also give me an opportunity from time time to try pound sizes of new things that catch my attention. The main objective is to retard aging such that the beans remain more or less in their sweet spot when thawed, and the relatively short time they'll be in suspended animation should make this possible.

Sounds like wide-mouth pint jars will work fine for my purposes, although I'll consider going smaller. Doesn't sound like vacuum pumping will gain me much, though I'll consider that option if results show I should. And on advice in other threads, I'll thaw each jar without opening to keep any condensation there may be on the outside.

Thanks, everyone!

I buy a pound at a time and put it all in a vacuum pump container. I remove a couple days worth as needed then repump and put it back in the freezer asap.

zin1953 wrote:I have been just filling-and-closing, but I got a vacuum sealer for the the holidays, and will start that in January.

Vacuum sealing can only be a benefit if coffee staling is exclusively an aerobic process. Old vacuum sealed beans indicate it is not. Old nitrogen flushed beans also indicate otherwise.

Whatever oxygen in the jar is probably used in short order. From then onwards, the environment is relatively inert.

miKe mcKoffee wrote:FWIW according to studies done many moons ago by Michael Sivetz -40f is the magic number to 100% halt aging in roasted coffee. Much lower than typical home freezers! That said I've tested and pulled 90% crema shots that tasted delish coffee vac sealed and frozen over a year home freezer around 0f.

My record is some vac bagged Redbird that I found in my freezer (-5*F) 7 months after freezing it 6 days post roast. Pulled some really nice shots from it over the 3 days it took to use it up. I save the mason jars (qt. & half gallon widemouth) for my greens that I'll be using up in a couple months. Those get vac sealed & stored in our cool basement. Anything going in the freezer gets vac bagged.

cafeIKE wrote:Vacuum sealing can only be a benefit if coffee staling is exclusively an aerobic process.

I drink coffee before I Jazzercise, does that count?

Hope you don't Jazzercise in a vacuum.

I guarantee you that the coffee you drink stales in your stomach pretty rapidly regardless.