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Permalink Reply by Brady on January 31, 2013 at 8:09am

Hi Gera. Are you talking espresso, drip, all of the above?

"at one cafe I found that the beans age very quickly and are less than optimal within about a week of roasting while in another the beans have bean too fresh even after 5-6 days from roasting. naturally the best thing to do would be to rest the fresh beans longer and stop using the older beans and open a fresher bag, but this is not the reality, or an option in a busy cafe and so this is more of a salvage question."

That's a pretty weak excuse. There are many, many people on here that run busy cafes that would strongly disagree with this statement. The root of this problem is poor inventory management. You may or may not be in a position to effect this, but that's your real answer.

Yes, many coffees will lose their sparkle a week after roasting. Make sure your storage conditions are as good as possible to delay this as long as possible. Only buy a week's worth of your most sensitive coffees at a time and burn through them first.

When it comes to espresso, there are some that recommend updosing (instead of grinding finer) as coffees start to fall off. Seems reasonable.

Yes, coffees for espresso are usually subpar for several (many?) days after roasting. There are some tricks for accelerating the mellowing process, but they have consequences of their own. Plan. Buy these a week (or more) ahead of when you'll need them and reorder before you start using next week's inventory.

For espresso, I've heard (but not tried) that grinding a little ahead and allowing your coffee to stale a little in the doser can be helpful. Haven't tried this because I think trying to manage the timing would make this method unstable and unusable.

If you often find you have to start using coffees for drip before they've settled down, try playing with your prewet settings to tame the bloom.

You might find that the freezer could be your friend here. For the short-lived coffees, freezing daily portions may help. For the "too fresh" ones, keeping a day's worth in the freezer as a spare might buy you time to let the new bags mellow out properly. We didn't have these problems enough to need to resort to this, so can't speak to the effectiveness.

Again - managing inventory is the real solution. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by gera davidson on February 10, 2013 at 5:14pm

hi brady tnx for the replay

when I said that managing stock or waste of coffee in a busy cafe' is not an option, I meant it is not an option for me - I do not own the cafe's nor do I make the orders or handle stock. the owners would usually not allow for wasting a whole bag of coffee just because "I think" it's past it's prime and although it is rare sometimes we get stock which is too fresh and have to work with it - no other ways.

Wish I could be in complete control but unfortunately most times I have to try and make the best of what I am given. you are right - I have found up dosing to assist with older coffee as well as extending the pull time a bit (few seconds), I wonder if down dosing and shorter pull times can help with very fresh coffee the same way?

tnx for your replay

Gera

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Permalink Reply by Brady on February 10, 2013 at 6:06pm

That's a really frustrating place to be. Good luck!

I don't think that dosing less will help with your too-fresh espresso problems. The issue in this case is that there's still too much CO2 trapped in the bean. It dissolves in water to create carbonic acid - which tastes harsh, and messes with your crema texture. The only way you'd be able to affect that in espresso would be to somehow get that CO2 out before extraction - hence the comments about grinding ahead.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Schaefer on April 11, 2013 at 10:15pm

Grinding ahead of time really can help tame too-fresh espresso at home, or in very low-volume situations, but I can't imagine trying to effectively manage it in a busy shop.

If you're working on a machine with pre-infusion capabilities, I think longer pre-infusion times would do the trick, but the list of pre-infusion espresso machines is relatively short, so this though may not be much help.

One option for better managing coffee stock without throwing anything out would be to order a little heavier on espresso and a little lighter on a drip coffee, then use any espresso that goes past prime for drip.  For my personal tastes, any bean good enough to make good espresso almost always makes a good drip coffee as well, and I usually think the age window for good flavor is wider for drip than espresso (say 3-10 days from roasting as espresso vs 1-14 days from roasting as drip for one of my old favorite espresso blends.)

Of course a lot of what I just said will vary with personal taste, but it's worth a shot.  I realize you don't control ordering, but it might be easier to sell management on the idea of re-distributing the order a little as opposed to actually throwing coffee out entirely.  Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by gera davidson on April 12, 2013 at 12:15am

hi Eric thanks for your replay

I did found lately that I can manage better drinks with beans not in their prime by varying my dose and grind so for old beans I would dose higher, grind courser and pull shorter shots while for fresh beans dose lower, grind finer and pull longer shots. although both option won't give great espresso shots, I am able to get away with decent milk drinks. not much fun to deal with less than optimal beans but I guess its part of the job :)

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