what is best charge rule of coffee??
what is best??
Frozen? Aroma velve bag? airtight instrument??
Frozen? Aroma velve bag? airtight instrument??
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Berkness on
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thou shalt never freeze coffee. this will cause the oils in the bean to freeze as well and will destroy the wonderful properties of the bean. You should keep coffee in an airtight container. You should also keep it out of the light . Coffee's three worst enemies are sunlight, oxygen, and the cold.
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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on
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There are those who routinely freeze coffee. Both premium greens for longer storage AND roasted coffee. Some well known respected coffee professionals like Michael Sivetz and George Howell for instance. I've personally tested vac sealed and frozen roasted coffee pulling 90% crema quite delish shots over a full year later.
Want to know how to not have the problem of sometimes way too fresh or way too old espresso hitting your grinder instead virtually always having the beans at their peak rest window? Air tight deep freeze it a day before peak rest. Take it out the day before anticipating it hitting the grinder. The roasts of my main blend for my cafe hit the freeer in 5LB bags day 7 rest.
Here's a recent blind taste test study. Click Here
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that's wierd and goes against everything i've ever been taught. i do believe it, but it would be better for me that I just always use fresh properly degassed beans.
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Permalink Reply by Patrick Reed on
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Fresh.
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I've always found contempt without investigation a curious thing. Personally I'm not a sheep and following the crowd isn't my thing. But rather test and find out.
While I 100% agree the ideal for a given blend might be to always be pulling shots at (for instance) 9 to 11 day peak rest window. The ideal will of course vary from blend to blend and adjustments in dosage, shot time, shot temp can be made to somewhat compensate for less than ideally rested. Yet how often have people been pulling 1 or 2 day out of the roaster do to miss timing ordering yielding far less than ideal shots. Heck I stopped in a fairly respected Roastery Cafe a couple weeks ago on a road trip and they were pulling 1 day rested because they screwed up their roast scheduling! Very sub-par shot lacking complexity and "soda" after taste. Not even close to what I know that blend was capable of being.
Or the other extreme not uncommonly happens of over ordering for anticipated needs and then end up pulling 3 or 4 week old or worse lifeless coffees. Or dumping and thowing money away, which is preferably but not necessarily possible and still keep the doors open if it happens too often.
On the other hand if blind taste testing of roasted and rested shots versus roasted, rested, frozen, then defrosted shots can't find noticable difference it makes no sense to me to not utilize that knowledge in providing a more consistent high quality product customer experience and with far less waste. When I have customers who are regulars and rave about my cafe's espresso and also frequent other area top shops like Stumptown the proof is in the pudding...
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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on
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never freeze ground coffee, heck never grind in advance. I agree with your point Mike, if it tastes better then do it. We have to try it ourselves to find out. there are no laws in this business. ok, thats not 100% true.
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Permalink Reply by N. Freeman on
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Mike,
I need to freeze some of my extra coffee beans that have set for over a week. My question: has anyone divided up their coffee and used vacuum bags and fully vacuumed their coffee before freezing. The vacuum machine pulls 24 pounds of pressure. I don't have valved bags.
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N. Freeman said:
Yes, I've used a Foodsaver vac'ing both greens and roasted coffees for years. Even if roast not degassed no biggy. CO2 just slowly released into bag which then no longer be "hard vac packed", but still sealed. Vac'ing removes the vast majority of the oxygen and at the same time bag provides hertical sealed barrier. Dividing up freeze lots for anticipated 1 or 2 days worth usage good. Preferably you want to defrost fully before usage but truth be told, in home usage I've oft ground beans straight from the freezer.Mike,
I need to freeze some of my extra coffee beans that have set for over a week. My question: has anyone divided up their coffee and used vacuum bags and fully vacuumed their coffee before freezing. The vacuum machine pulls 24 pounds of pressure. I don't have valved bags.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Marrocco on
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Seriously guys,...we're freezing coffee, seriously? Ok... I concede that if you are going to be heading out to a tiny cabin in the wilderness totally cut off from society and need to have decent tasting coffee for the next year you should thnk about freezing your coffee. But, for those of us who have access to coffee that has been roasted within 10,... DO NOT FREEZE COFFEE!! If you cannot taste the difference between coffee frozen and coffee that is fresh and never frozen you may want to spend some more time cupping. I'm not trying to be a critical jerk, but just trying to help. There is a major difference, epecially when it comes to espresso!!! Wow!! I'm kind of blown away here. Freezing is like what my grandma did with her canned coffee that she woud buy in bulk and nurse for months. Freezing causes so many changes to the molecular structure of the coffee, not to mention the thawing, condensation, etc.... Are we concerned with quality and truly considering this? Quality is summed up in one word, freshness.Come get your freshly thawed coffee!?!?! NO!!! Come get you fresh ROASTED coffee. There is undoubtedly a longer window of offgassing for great espresso. But, we must be vigilant in ordering, storing, selling, brewing, etc... in order to allow our coffee to be at its best.
Think about it like this: If you are going to buy a steak to prepare at your restaraunt and you are concerned with quality, are you going to buy a frozen steak, or a fresh cut of meat that has never been frozen. To any old palate, it may not make any difference. But, to a person who cares, to a proffesional butcher or chef, it is going to make a world of difference. Be kind to your coffee. there is no call to freeze it. Just order less. Keep better track of your sales. Order more locally roasted,... change something to avoid freezing.
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Major difference, especially when it comes to espresso indeed. Michael Sivetz is an idiot with the pallet of a dinosaur. George Howell is a moron with the pallet of house fly. The espresso specific study I cited (with link) while posted on home-barista.com was in fact done by USBC Certified Judges who also must have pallets of wallowing pigs. I think not...
I'm not saying and never said there was no difference and in fact stated the ideal was to always be in a 3 day or so peak rest window. Which quite often, even I'd wager more often than not, doesn't happen. Ideals versus real world are not always possible to keep perfectly in step. I am saying 1 or 2 day rested "fresh roast" never frozen shots are far inferior to rested just to peak, frozen, then defrosted and pulled shots, or 3+ week old "fresh roast" never frozen...
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Permalink Reply by Jay Caragay on
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Freezing causes the destruction of the wonderful properties of the bean??? Such as???
As an operator with, in conjunction with one of our roasters, nearly ten years experience with freezing coffees, statements such as the one above are complete bollocks. Freezing will not destroy your coffee. Nor will it cause the crystallization of water in the bean to destroy the structure. Nor will it impart off-flavors as it would under refrigeration.
I don't argue with the position that it's best to use only fresh coffee. In fact, if you've got your operations to a point where your supply is perfectly timed to receive and use your coffee within X days out of the roaster then all the better. However, we don't always have things timed perfectly and, sometimes, a case is made for frozen coffees.
Frozen coffees will hold your coffee at whatever stage it was at freezing. Coffee needs five days post roast when you deep froze it after two days? Then six months later when you pull it from storage, it's gonna need another two days to reach its' peak.
Condensation from thawing? It's really not happening. At least not as it would had you pulled a steak from the freezer. Quite simply, the water content in coffee is too low (about .03%).
And speaking of steak, I'll take that frozen rib eye from my local farm over that "fresh" cut corn-fed USDA prime angus you bought at the store anyday - and I'll guarantee that the flavor of my frozen will blow away that piece of meat I wouldn't feed to my dog.
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