Freezing Coffee Beans: Why and How Should You Do It?
In the past, freezing coffee beans for storage caused debate in the coffee industry, but now it is recognized as a positive concept. Why and how should you freeze coffee beans? Is it true that freezing coffee beans improves the flavor?
Why should you freeze your coffee beans?
"Can you freeze coffee?" is an often asked question. There are two main reasons for freezing roasted coffee beans:
Freezing keeps the flavour better.
Freezing coffee is an excellent way to retain its flavors and keep it from spoiling. In ideal conditions, you would brew coffee within 3–14 days of roasting, but it is not feasible, so you will need a technique to keep coffee for longer periods of time. Freezing locks the flavors within the coffee beans and keeps the coffee in the same condition as it would be a few days after roasting. Will it taste as nice as it did when it was freshly roasted? Most likely not, but it will be close.
Freezing increases grinding quality.
When you grind coffee, you will receive three types of grounds: fines (really small particles), boulders (really big particles), and ideal-sized particles. The better your grinder, the fewer fines and boulders you'll get, and those two are nearly always poor for brewing coffee. Freezing the beans and grinding them "frozen" results in more consistent grind size particle distributions and a finer grind. Both of these characteristics will improve extraction, allowing you to extract more flavor from your coffee.
How should you freeze your coffee beans?
There are two requirements for successfully freezing coffee beans: the beans must be placed in an airtight container, and there must be no air present. So you have two choices: vacuum sealing or using a tube or container. These tubes have been used to freeze my coffee. They are quite useful because they can hold around 20 grams of coffee (depending on what type of coffee you have, 18–22 grams).
How long does it stay good in the freezer?
According to some studies, a day at room temperature is equivalent to nearly 200 days in the freezer. It's been at least two years since I started my own coffee collection in my freezer.