Rate of coffee staling - Page 4

Discuss flavors, brew temperatures, blending, and cupping notes.
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cafeIKE
Posts: 4703
Joined: 18 years ago

#31: Post by cafeIKE »

No. The logistics would be a nightmare. UPS, and soon USPS, don't deliver on Saturday.

For years, I roasted almost every or every other day to have optimal beans. One day I said "This is nuts" and threw a bag of professional roast in the freezer. A week or so later, it was still great. Shortly thereafter Ken did his seminal Freezing study. Game over. Never looked back.

In the past week I've had 1 gShot with Caffe d'Bolla Mountain Mambo [ 9 days post roast* ] and two lesser deities of Rocky Roaster Organic [ two weeks post roast* ], all frozen.

You'd have to be my personal barista for me to give up freezing coffee.
The missus, on the other hand, would like her freezer back.

*post roast is time at room temperature plus accumulated freezer time / 16

Ken Fox
Posts: 2447
Joined: 18 years ago

#32: Post by Ken Fox »

Would I be out of line to suggest that the last few posts in this thread be split off to rejoin the recent "repeat freezing study thread" co-initiated by Jim Schulman and myself?

Freezing Espresso Coffee, Part Two

Lets put aside for the moment the question of whether any of us can really claim to be objective and competent enough at tasting espresso to actually rely on our own anecdotal comparison experiences of fresh/never frozen vs. previously frozen coffee. I believe hardly any of us can be trusted to do that, but then that is just my opinion :mrgreen:

In any event, at least for me, most (maybe all) of the coffees I really enjoy, which are admittedly all Single Origins, change very rapidly after roasting. They tend to have 2 or 3 days (maximum) when they are at their (absolute) peak and capable of producing the best shots they are capable of producing. Before and after that, they are simply not quite as good. And yes, I have personally experienced more or less the same length of an "optimal time window" with my previously frozen coffees, at least the way that I roast and freeze (and unfreeze) them.

So, if I were going to try to drink only coffee at the absolute peak, I would be forced to roast every 2 or 3 days, not once a week. Now I'm not saying that I actually attempt that, to drink all my coffee at its absolute peak. That is simply not practicable. But you could almost accomplish that with freezing, and I'd never be able to accomplish that with regular roasting as there is no way at all that I'm going to roast every 2 or 3 days, never ever.

ken
What, me worry?

Alfred E. Neuman, 1955

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