Hi fellow roasters,
I'm torn on getting a roaster but have concerns based on some missing points and ignorance. If I buy 50 lbs of green beans knowing my consumption rate is possibly 2 lbs per month for that one variety, that puts me at storing greens for ~2 years. Given anyone's experience with this, is there a huge taste difference between roasting all of it right away when its fresh and then freezing in air-tight 2lb parcels, or roasting every month and drinking fresh-roasted? (that was the easy question)

Assuming the best scenario is to store the greens in a cool air-tight place for 2 years, what type of flavor / quality degradation do you normally see with that aging?

Thanks for any wisdom you can shed on this.

You can use a Foodsaver to vacuum pack your greens and freeze them and have fresh roasted coffee from fresh greens at your convenience.

Why buy that much of one green? I buy 8 - 12 lbs at a a time, 2 lb batches. That spits up to 3 300 gr roasts. Coffee is, and isn't like wine. Each year is different; however it doesn't keep like wine.

I understand getting in the rhythm of roasting something you really like, and in many instances you will have better access to quality greens online vs roasted stuff locally, I can relate to that.

Another factor is going to be your roaster's capacity. If your roaster can only roast 100g at a time, you will be freezing lots of small bags. I roast 100g at a time and freeze 400g bags which is roughly a month to two weeks for me.

I feel that in this state you could keep the greens good for at least your projected timeline. Roasted coffee freezes quite well in my experience, but is more perishable I feel.

If you're freezing your vac packed greens and grinding your roasted coffee right before use, I'd say your plan works well.

If you anticipate long term storage, you may also consider using dry ice to fill bags with non-reactive gas prior to vac sealing.

If old green vs. old roasted is the choice I would choose tea.

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This!

I'd choose water....

I also buy multiples (or try to) of my batch size, 4-6 kilos works pretty well and you do nto get tired of the same bean since you can rotate.

I'm getting back into roasting with a older Hottop programmable roaster using green beans that are years old. The type of Hottop that it is doesn't allow starting the roast at high 400F temps and manipulating the RoR from there. The start is up to 190F and my manipulation is in the rising rate of temperature. I'm not sure how that effects roast profile with old green beans compared to more common roast profiles I'm reading about but the roasts are pretty good. I'd rather have the fresh roasted old beans than old roasted fresh beans. It's more of an opinion but from what I've read fresh roasts, like fresh baked bread, are hard to keep fresh for any extended length of time.

Seems like this is a forced choice. I wouldn't choose either. Buy greens as you start to need them. No need to buy 50lbs to tuck away in a dark corner for two years.

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