Leaving coffee beans in hopper

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mturkel99
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#1: Post by mturkel99 »

Assuming beans are roasted within the week. Is there any benefit in keeping them in the paper/plastic airtight bag as opposed to leaving them in the hopper?

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mogogear
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#2: Post by mogogear »

IMHO- I don't know if this is a method used by all - but generally most members seem to keep beans in an airtight container. This helps retard oxidizing and affection of ambient humidity etc. In addition the hopper is dosed per shot or series of shots.

The time between grinding coffee and dosing into the PF is kept as brief as possible as well. Maybe 15 seconds to say 30 seconds. This all to preserve the natural aromatics for the cup.

This sounds a little AR- and is by some measure. I am sure there is a variation amongst members regarding which detail is the most important to them.

I am sure we all can attest that fresh beans is one of the Holy Grails we seem to collectively pursue.

Others?
greg moore

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edwa
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#3: Post by edwa »

In addition to what mogogear writes I think you'll find that the inside of your hopper starts to get very oily and then you'll be adding new beans to that. Do yourself a favor and do a comparison. Put a pound in an airtight container in cool dark place and pull from it only what you need for the moment then return it to its hiding place. Make notes of the characteristics of the shots over the week. Then for the next week put them in the hopper as usual. I believe you will find that at the end of the week the hopper stored beans will have a lot less life to them to say nothing of the taste.

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HB
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#4: Post by HB »

A day or two supply of coffee beans in the hopper doesn't bother me. Anything more than that, I store in a Mason jar -- either the small 4 ounce size or the larger 8 ounce size if I'm testing. Some members prefer to single dose "hopperless" and I did that at one time. Nowadays I pull 4-6 espressos each session to spread out experimentation over weeks instead of an intense weekend, so I always use the hopper.
Dan Kehn

mturkel99 (original poster)
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#5: Post by mturkel99 (original poster) »

Any reason for the smaller jar? I normally purchase locally roasted beans in 1 pound quantities

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HB
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#6: Post by HB »

mturkel99 wrote:Any reason for the smaller jar?
Why else? To maximize the freshness.

Ideally once I open a bag, I split it into small mason jars (approximately six jars for one pound) and store half of them in the freezer. The larger mason jars hold almost half a pound. Out of laziness, I use them most of the time. If I don't finish them before the week's up, no problem, they're already packed. If a couple weeks have gone by and I still haven't finished them, I give them to my neighbors. They like good coffee, but they're not as picky as me.
Dan Kehn

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malachi
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#7: Post by malachi »

I dump a pound into the machine at a time.
Then again... I go through about a pound every three days.

My argument is simple...

1) Even when stored in "optimal" circumstances (as Dan describes) I don't find espresso drinkable outside of a 3 day window (starting at day 2-5 depending on coffee).

2) I clean the hopper between each batch so oil build-up is not an issue.

3) I find that low bean volume in the hopper results in inferior grind quality.
What's in the cup is what matters.

Ken Fox
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#8: Post by Ken Fox »

malachi wrote:I dump a pound into the machine at a time.
Then again... I go through about a pound every three days.

My argument is simple...

1) Even when stored in "optimal" circumstances (as Dan describes) I don't find espresso drinkable outside of a 3 day window (starting at day 2-5 depending on coffee).
I think there is a lot of variability in this, and it depends a lot on the specific coffee and roast level. In changing my roast profiling recently, I accidentally "incinerated" some recent roast batches. Surprisingly, they were quite drinkable as SO espressos from about days 2-4 or 2-5, but immediately thereafter began tasting like a charcoal briquet. Contrarywise, I have done some very very light roasts that were vibrant and (in my view, excellent) for SO espresso for periods as long as 7-9 days (say days 2-11 post roast, at best). I would leave those beans in the hopper for a couple or 3 days, but not for that entire period.
malachi wrote:3) I find that low bean volume in the hopper results in inferior grind quality.
This is a point I have tried to make repeatedly on posts dealing with the use of commercial grinders for individual shot dosing, a practice that I feel impacts the resulting beverage negatively, e.g. operating most commercial grinders without a bean column on top of the beans that are being ground.

ken
What, me worry?

Alfred E. Neuman, 1955

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malachi
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#9: Post by malachi »

Ken Fox wrote:This is a point I have tried to make repeatedly on posts dealing with the use of commercial grinders for individual shot dosing, a practice that I feel impacts the resulting beverage negatively, e.g. operating most commercial grinders without a bean column on top of the beans that are being ground.
Yup.
Been fighting this battle myself for years - to no avail.
It's a bad idea but a lot of folks seem to prefer low waste to high quality coffee.
Shrug.
What's in the cup is what matters.

Ken Fox
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#10: Post by Ken Fox replying to malachi »

I don't even think it is (primarily) a waste issue. The reason why people do this is that they convince themselves that they must have 3 or 4 (or more) types of roasted coffee available all the time, and they must consume them all the same day, ground from the same grinder. If you buy into that idea, in my opinion, the only way to really do that well is to be willing to use ~50g of coffee beans for each shot. The first 10g is used to clean out the previous coffee, and the last 20g or so to weigh down the bean column. That works, but is obviously hugely wasteful.

Instead, people try to use 25g to get their desired 20g, or 20g to get a desired 15g.

What I do, which is completely irrational, is I have 3 grinders. Most people have more common sense than to buy 3 commercial grinders or to tie up that much kitchen counterspace, but that is a real solution if one is searching for it.

I would absolutely love to see a real study using scanning electron microscopy to evaluate the grind size distributions when coffee is ground with a bean column above and without. People compensate for the absence of a bean column, most of the time, by fining up the grind. But what does that do to the bean fragment distribution? My opinion is, probably nothing good.

ken
What, me worry?

Alfred E. Neuman, 1955

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