JimWright wrote:Wait, you make less than 3 doubles at a time?

Mon-Fri I'm the only coffee drinker unless a friend drops by + I like variety. Once I polish off the mornings 2 double bag I usually brew up a 32 g bag of something interesting using a large Finum filter w/16oz of water. If its getting hot I will move on to the cold brew concentrate in the fridge for a nice iced coffee.

Currently stashed in the freezer: 2 s/o Espressos (Konga Co-Op/Daterra Calabria), Kenya La Mamuto, La Minita Estate from Terroir; some Black Cat, the new Esmeralda from Pt's & 5 lbs of a dark roast blend from Java Specialties for the Toddy. If it wasn't for the damn caffeine I'd be sampling each one every day but I do the best I can while still managing a few hours sleep every night. :

JohnB. wrote:The thing I like least about the mason jar full of beans is that once you remove it from the freezer you have a jar full of beans sitting there slowly getting staler each time you open & reseal.

An 8 ounce mason jar only holds 3.5-4 doubles. I usually make 3-4 doubles a day. I suspect there's a lot of people who will be able to go through an 8 ounce jar in 1-2 days.

BTW, nice perspective with the GS3 joke. But really, isn't this whole forum overkill in the eyes of 99% of the population!

"An 8 ounce mason jar only holds 3.5-4 doubles. I usually make 3-4 doubles a day. I suspect there's a lot of people who will be able to go through an 8 ounce jar in 1-2 days.
BTW, nice perspective with the GS3 joke. But really, isn't this whole forum overkill in the eyes of 99% of the population! "

An 8 oz jar isn't too bad, I was thinking more of the pint jars. As I said I like variety so even if I was making 3-4 doubles in one day it would be from a couple different coffees so the small bags work better for me.

My friends, even those that like coffee, think my coffee obsession is way over the top. When I tell them I'm on several coffee forums they just roll their eyes.

JohnB. wrote: My friends, even those that like coffee, think my coffee obsession is way over the top. When I tell them I'm on several coffee forums they just roll their eyes.

Same here. My friends think I'm deranged before my wife tells them what I paid for the GS/3... afterward, and knowing the time and money I spend at cafes and on coffee related products, research, and conversation, they're absolutely sure... Last weekend I was talking to a friend about coffee freshness as we drove from LA up to Monterey, and he was incredulous when I said coffee should preferably be consumed within a week or two at most... and this is a guy who I would put at the 90th percentile of coffee awareness... I'd put the contributors on this forum at the 99.9th percentile...

I will split my pound bag between two jars, tighten up the rings to seal the jars and put them in the freezer. Coffee will keep for several weeks very nicely when sealed and frozen. After a couple of months the coffee does start to degrade more rapidly once the jar has been retrieved from the freezer and put into use.

This topic was discussed to length in Kens Coffee: to freeze or Not to Freeze article. May be a worth while read.

darrensandford wrote:Thinking about the whole vacuum bag thing.

My personal thought is that it is a good idea. I don't imagine that a vacuum bag creates a large negative pressure on the beans, and the amount of "space" for the vacuum to occupy in the bag is very small compared to the amount of CO2 that is outgassed as the coffee is stored, so the amount that outgassing is accelerated will be minimal. There must be a net benefit to removing the oxygen.

Andy S posted this link in another thread. Sivetz PACKAGING ROAST COFFEES.

Does anyone actually package using cans positively pressurized with inert gas?

Illy does. According to their website:

illy FAQ wrote:How long will an unopened can of illy stay fresh?

An unopened can of illy ground coffee will remain fresh for at least two years due to illy's proprietary patented pressurized system that extracts air from the can and replaces it with inert gasses at a higher-than-atmospheric level of pressure.

Metacomment: They don't mention how long it stays fresh after opening. In my limited experience, illy coffee stales very fast -- on the order of 1 to 3 days.

HB wrote:Metacomment: They don't mention how long it stays fresh after opening. In my limited experience, illy coffee stales very fast -- on the order of 1 to 3 days.

Interesting - have you ever gotten Illy beans recently roasted? (Wondering if the rapid staling effect is limited to beans that are months or years old already, or if even relatively fresh beans would be made to stale quickly by positive pressure prior to opening, and if the latter, how that would work...)

Sorry, I don't know the roast date of illy's coffees that I sampled. Given that there are plenty of great freshly-roasted coffees available from Internet roasters, I am not willing to pay for illy's expensively packaged offerings.