How do you store your coffee beans? Are you keeping them in a regular jar in the cabinet? Then you might be doing it the wrong way all this time. While it is a little controversial idea in the coffee industry, freezing coffee beans has lately been recognized as good practice by many coffee aficionados and baristas. In this blog post, we are going to explore the reasons why freezing coffee beans could be good for you and how can you do that. Also, we will try to understand if freezing the coffee beans can have an impact on the brew’s final flavors and aromas.
Why do we need to freeze Coffee Beans?
There are two reasons why people generally freeze their coffee beans. These are to keep the flavors intact and enhance the grinding quality. Let’s go through each of these in detail below:
FREEZING BEANS HELP IN KEEPING THE COFFEE FLAVORS INTACT
Everyone freezes food to prevent it from going bad and preserve its original flavors. Freezing a bolognese sauce today will make it taste the same or even better tomorrow—you must have tried that too! But have you tried this trick with coffee? Can coffee not go stale or lose its flavors?
Did you know that coffee starts losing its flavors with time once it has been roasted? This is one of the biggest challenges with coffee and day after day, its taste will get boring and dull. And if you leave it a few weeks after roasting, it might even start producing stale flavors as the oils in the coffee begin to go bad, resulting in bitterness & dirty flavors. Ideally, coffee should be consumed within 3-14 days post roasting—however, we know that never happens, especially in domestic use. Thus, there arises a need to store coffee for long durations such that its original flavors remain intact.
The best method of storing coffee for a long time is freezing. With this, you can lock the flavors of your coffee beans and this will preserve them in a way that they remain in the freshly roasted condition even after weeks. It might not taste as good as freshly roasted coffee but is going to be quite close.
FREEZING BEANS HELP IN IMPROVING GRINDING QUALITY
Not many would know or follow, but coffee aficionados believe that freezing beans increases grinding quality. Basically, there are three types of grinds, namely, fine (extremely small particles), boulders (big particles), and medium-sized particles (optimally sized, somewhere in between the other two). The better the grinder, the fewer the chances of getting boulder or fine types. If we decode the implication of every particle on the final brew, generally, fine particles over-extract quickly and easily and on the other hand, boulder particles will extract less.
However, if you freeze your coffee beans then you can save yourself from the nasty two and get more optimal-sized particles. The grind will be uniform and it may also lead to the final grinding of beans. Both factors can help you enhance extraction—this means more flavors from beans to coffee and evenly so. As a result, your coffee will be sweeter with less acidity and bitter flavors.
To simply explain, freezing coffee will enhance the grinding process and impact the final brew.
How To Freeze Coffee Beans?
The key to freezing beans successfully is using an airtight container so that no or little air passes through. You have two ways of achieving that—through vacuum sealing in a bag or using an airtight container or tube. You can vacuum seal the beans in a plastic bag but this process requires a vacuum sealer which makes the process a little expensive.
You can also use tubes but they can only accommodate 20 grams of coffee in them. The trick to get the most is to fill the tube as much as possible so that they fit tighter. And then finally you seal it. Also, to identify what beans are in which tube, you can put labels on the tubes. You can also put more details like your coffee recipe you’d like to use in the future so that you have it ready in two years.
How Long Can the Coffee Stay in Freezer?
Studies suggest that a day at room temperature is equal to 200 years in the freezer. So you can keep it for as long as you want to without worrying about the coffee going bad or losing its flavors. Some coffee aficionados freeze their coffee for at least 2 years to get the perfect grinding texture and flavors and likewise build extensive coffee collections.
So next time you roast your coffee beans, do not forget to keep them in the freezer so that you can enjoy that perfect brew every time. Hope this read was helpful; stay tuned as we are brewing more insightful reads for you!
