Hi,

I wanted to hear what people's preferred freezing routine is. I only bought a big batch once before (5#s of RedBird) and experimented with all the different techniques people use (which, of course, I learned by reading the old threads on the issue).

However, for the majority of the 5#s of froze coffee I did the following: fill pint sized mason jars and keep them in the freezer. take jar out jar, measure a shot's worth, put jar back into freezer. Although the coffee always smelled delicious, I wasn't that happy with the results especially towards the end of the pint.

Currently, I froze 3 sealed 12oz bags (with tape over the one-way valve) and I think I will try taking it out the night before use to get to room temp and putting it into an airscap and not refreeze the bag.

What is your preferred routine?

beer&mathematics wrote:take jar out jar, measure a shot's worth, put jar back into freezer.

What I did was very similar, except for the quoted above. I only freeze once. Once it's out of the freezer, I will let it sit in the room temp to age naturally (few days max).

Oh, and I will let it warm up to room temp before opening the jar. Intuitively, exposing the beans to environment while the temperature differential is there, albeit transiently, may do something to the bean, eg condensation. I'd rather err on the careful side.

My routine is as follows:

I age beans until just before their peak. Then I vacuum seal them into freezer storage bags, usually around 120-150g per bag. Each bag gets marked with what coffee it contains, when I froze it, and the total quantity frozen, because otherwise I can't tell them apart in the freezer. When I want to use them I take them out of the freezer, let the beans warm to room temperature before breaking the seal on the bag. After that point, I do not refreeze the beans again.

I know it sounds complicated, but here are my two main reasons for taking this approach. First, I like to freeze in small enough batches that I can have 2 or 3 different beans defrosted at any point in time without too much risk of beans going stale before I have gone through them. Second, I live in Florida, and the humidity is intense down here. If I opened freezer jars, scooped out beans, and resealed the jar I would be introducing a lot of moisture onto the frozen beans from condensation. I've found that I get more consistent results if beans are frozen under vacuum and then thawed under vacuum, so that condensation never has a chance to accumulate.

Depends on the brewing method. For my siphon coffees I let the beans age 2-3 days & then vacuum seal 1 or 2 doses in Foodsaver bags I make from the roll material & freeze. For espresso I fill pint or qt canning jars about 4 days post roast, vacuum seal & freeze. The pint jars come out & stay on the counter to age until gone. With the qt. jars I fill 2 pint jars, leaving one out & putting the other back in the freezer before the beans have time to warm up.

I used to freeze the bags. Then when I open a bag I'd transfer to mason jars and put all but one back into the freezer. The "for use" jar would be out on the counter until finished. A day before it is finished I'd take the next jar out to slowly thaw in the fridge, and then out on the counter.

Then I changed my routine. I'd do the same as above but would not leave the jar on the counter. Instead I'd leave it in the fridge. Take a new jar from the freezer into the fridge as the older one gets low.

Then I changed the routine again. I take the whole 1 pound out of the freezer. Transfer them into mason jars. Put them all in the fridge, and use them one by one until finished.

I did not see any bad effects leaving the whole one pound in 2-3 mason jars in the fridge. I'm using the 16oz jars. So you see, I got less OCD over it and everything is just fine.

The fridge is at 40-43F. BTW.

Mostly Spaghetti sauce jars filled to the top, about 12 oz worth. Into the freezer with date roasted and date frozen. Depending on what, where and when, I'll pull a jar out to finish off completely and then single dose some other origin out of the freezer for some variety.

beer&mathematics wrote: putting it into an airscap and not refreeze the bag.

I stopped using my airscape after comparing coffee that had been stored in my airscape (and opened 3 or 4 times a day) versus the same coffee stored in small mason jars that held enough coffee for one days worth. The coffee in the airscape got stale much faster (around 5 days, versus around 15 days for the mason jars). Now I only use it for de-gassing my coffee for the first 48 hours after roasting.

This might be a topic for another post but what would be anyone's routine for freezing greens? I've been getting 5lb bags from GCBC and splitting them into 1/2lb vacuum sealed bags marked with bean variety and date.

I've been vacuum bagging and freezing in 150g packs, labeled with variety, roast date & freeze date. Remove a pack from the freezer, bring to room temp, then dump into an Illy can. Portion out from the Illy can as needed.

Now I've ordered 15 similar cans that should hold around 120g each, and these have the same plastic insert/seal that Illy uses. I'll put beans in the cans, slap on painters tape and write down the bean particulars there. Straight into the freezer and straight out for use. No more vacuum bags, no more sealing, very little waste. At least that's what I'm hoping for... Got the cans from specialtybottle.com for about $1.50 each with shipping. Should have them in hand for my next 5 pound order.

I use small-top canning/freezer jars from Ball. I find that the 12 ounce jars hold about six shots worth of beans (which is two days of coffee for me) and that works best. The 8 ounce jars hold about four shots worth of beans and that doesn't work as well for my usage. A pound of espresso beans almost always fits in four 12 ounce jars. They cost 10-15 bucks for a box of 12, if I remember correctly.

I have jars for about five pounds of coffee. I store them in the freezer vertically and they fit in the shelves or baskets of both my freezers. I usually buy two pounds at a time and then have two or three coffees I can trade off.

This works well for my primary espresso beans (which for me are decaf). I also keep up to a pound of caffeinated beans in two-shot plastic containers to minimize refreezing when I just need a shot or two of pep-me-up.