I'm happy to announce that my observation (though of course totally limited) seconds that the freezing is good. I enjoy the taste like the coffee was in its full-flavor period, only I needed to increase dose a touch.

I owe also a confession, with respect to my earlier hesitation to freezing coffee which based on another observation. Similarly like the microwaved food has terrible effect and very noticeable (to me), the frozen food has effect of diminishing vitality and the protective energy of the body. It is also noticeable to me.
Yet I have not observed any kind of change related to freezing of roasted coffee. Though the sample was limited, I'm somewhat sure that I would notice if there was any effect present.

While digging through the vac bagged greens in my freezer yesterday I found 2 vac bags of Redbird Espresso that had gotten pushed to the rear & forgotten. This was roasted on 5/5/10 & vac bagged/frozen 6 days later on 5/11/10. I didn't expect much but since the bags were still tightly sealed around the beans I pulled one out & left it on the counter. By morning the bag had fully puffed up indicating the beans had resumed degassing after 7 months in the freezer. I've pulled two excellent shots so far with both having the great chocolate/hazelnut flavors that Redbird is known for.

This is impressive. What vac sealing system are you using? Is this a "deep freeze" freezer or a regular fridge/freezer? If I can get this much time, this may slow down / end my home roasting.

I use an older Foodsaver V2480 & store my roasted/green coffee in an upright storage freezer set to minus 5*F. I wouldn't expect to see this good of a result every time after 6-7 months but you should definitely be able to store your vac bagged/frozen roasted coffee for 2-3 months without noticeable flavor loss.

I seriously doubt that you would see the same results using a freezer/fridge combination.

As has been previously pointed out by Andy Schecter on a recent thread, home "vacuum sealers" remove only a small percentage of the oxygen within the bag or container; in order to remove more, a very expensive commercial level machine is required.

Given the small amount of oxygen that is removed by the home sealers, and the fact that there is zero proof that this accomplishes anything with coffee preservation, I will continue to regard the use of home vacuum sealers as adding little or nothing to the established benefit which comes from the use of freezing to preserve roasted coffee. The only apparent benefit from using a vacuum device was in the work of Sivitz, where he preserved/preserves coffee at a much colder temperature and with the sort of vacuum that only a commercial device can provide.

ken

To my eyes the Foodsaver sucks the bag down as tightly around the beans as it can go without popping the beans through. If that is "removing only a small percentage of oxygen" then I can live with it. Just as vacuum bagging has been shown to extend the freezer life of meats & vegetables I've found that it works better then other popular methods like canning jars or taping over one way valves for long term roasted coffee storage.

Fill up one of your canning jars with roasted coffee 4-6 days post roast, leave it in the freezer for 6-7 months & let us know how it fares. Meanwhile I will continue to use what I know works best for me just as I'll continue to regularly clean my grinders.

Previous blind tasting studies posted on this website show that it is very difficult to tell the difference between fresh, never frozen coffee, and coffee that has been frozen immediately after roasting for periods up to 4 months. Anecdotal evidence shows that this freezing interval can be significantly longer than 4 months, however this has not been formally "tested." Since no vacuum is necessary to get these sorts of results, it is hard to see what possible benefit can come from introducing the sort of vacuum that a home vacuum device produces into the mix; if one can't tell the difference, then one can't tell the difference, and it's hard to improve on that result.

Introducing a modest level of vacuum into the mix could have either positive, negative, or no results. I'd vote for "no results" as a guess, however I think one can make as strong an argument for the potential results being negative as for them being positive. What exactly is one sucking out of the beans and the container, anyway? Is it just "the bad stuff," or could some "good stuff" also be extracted. I have no clue.

However, to each his own.

ken

Even if the vacuum packing does little, the thick heat sealed bags insure that no freezer funk gets into the beans. I have used zip top bags, mason jars and vac pack. I have always had good luck with the mason jars and the vac pack but had zip top bags get pin holes from other frozen items falling on them or the top gets pulled open when it snags on something else when it is removed from the deep freeze. I usually use jars but I do vac pack my greens and put them in the deep freezer.

For a brief period, I vac packed my green beans before freezing. What I found was that if I waited long enough, usually no more than a couple of months, that the plastic would get punctured (presumably on a sharp bean edge) and "vacuum packed" bean packages were no longer sealed.

Since then, I have been using Ziploc bags, but I do double bag the green beans. I've had zero problems with this approach. My roasted beans go into jars if they are for my own personal consumption, or into taped over valve bags if they are for the friends I roast for.

When people post about "freezer funk" and similar things, I have to wonder exactly what they are keeping in their freezers. My chest freezers have all sorts of stuff in them, however none of it is cooked and all of it is double bagged, or in closed containers such as ice cream. I would defy anyone to smell anything significant in any of my freezers. If a freezer stinks, then I would suggest that is because the owner is putting stinky and improperly packaged stuff in it. My freezers do not stink, do not have "freezer funk," and perhaps this is because I only use them for long term storage of properly sealed foods, not for random slices of last night's take out pizza, or what was left over from the recent visit to the local Chinese restaurant.

ken

Most of my freezer contents were once strolling through the woods, or swimming up stream to spawn until I decided they looked tasty. What I call freezer funk is less stink and more stale. Hard to describe, more like stale stagnant air, like the hunting cabin after it has been closed up for 6 months. Never had an issue with the vac bags getting punctured but zip top bags are quite a bit lighter. I think the more important issue or take away is whatever you use, make sure it is air tight.