Arpi wrote:From the book The Coffee Cuppers' Handbook pg 9

"As it leaves, CO2 extracts other organic materials, changing them into a gaseous state at room temperature. These gasses, which are predominately esters, form the essence of coffee's fragrance."

I image the esters gasify on their own at room temperature. If you take oily, stale, long since stopped outgassing beans and leave them in air, the oil eventually evaporates.

Agree with IKE that the frozen coffee, while being pretty much spot on taste wise with the unfrozen (after 1 day rest) seems to lose freshness maybe a day or 2 early. A small price to pay for ordering more, having coffee when you NEED it, and saving shipping charges. Wish I'd done this years ago.

Haven't tried the mason jars, as I was afraid of an explosion. Is this possible, if the beans only reside in the freezer 5-6 days?

IMAWriter wrote:Agree with IKE that the frozen coffee, while being pretty much spot on taste wise with the unfrozen (after 1 day rest) seems to lose freshness maybe a day or 2 early. A small price to pay for ordering more, having coffee when you NEED it, and saving shipping charges. Wish I'd done this years ago.

Haven't tried the mason jars, as I was afraid of an explosion. Is this possible, if the beans only reside in the freezer 5-6 days?

That is pretty much my experience as well. Freezing works very well, with shots after freezing tasting just as good. It does seems like the beans stale a day or two early, but this is a worthwhile trade off.

Funny question about the mason jars. I wore safety glasses the first few times I tried it as the idea of glass shard filled hand grenades did not appeal very much. But in a normal deep freeze the beans out gas very little and I've found that it is not a concern. I wouldn't however store fresh beans in glass jars at room temperature.

IMAWriter wrote:Haven't tried the mason jars, as I was afraid of an explosion. Is this possible, if the beans only reside in the freezer 5-6 days?

I don't think it's a realistic concern. They pressurize dramatically more at room temperature. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever had a mason jar come out of the freezer pressurized. However, after a day or two of being thawed, they typically make a pretty noticeable burp when you open the jar.

Anyway, the reason I think it's an unrealistic concern is that I think the lid is the weak point. It's far more likely that the metal lid will bend ever so slightly and allow gas to be expelled long before enough pressure to fracture the glass is built up. I've burped many, many jars in the time I've been using them to store coffee. I'm yet to break a mason jar.

I store all my beans in mason jars in the deep freeze (-30F'ish). Never had a problem. I doubt you will grenade a jar from out gassing.

Today I've done straight shots with beans out of the freezer (Vacuvin canisters) and they were good (but a little weak). If I reseal right after, the moisture does not enter and I can place the beans back in the freezer. This could mean something akin to freshness for ever. I also did some clever dripper cups with beans straight out of the freezer but those are always very good so that didn't mean much.

Cheers