How To Store Roasted Beans And Prolong Their Freshness
Roasters will carefully observe the characteristics of the green beans, ensure the quality of the samples through cupping, and then find the best way to roast the bean and try many methods to find out how to bring out the best flavor of the coffee.
But what if, after all your hard work, the quality of the roasted coffee is compromised due to a poor storage system? Or you can't sell the roasted coffee as quickly as you expected, and the coffee beans have already started to age in the roaster and become stale?
Roasted coffee is susceptible to many factors: light, temperature, humidity, and, most importantly, oxygen. Good storage should preserve the freshness of the coffee and maintain its flavor profile for as long as possible so that the drinker can enjoy the coffee in its best condition. Let's take a look at what traditional best preservation methods and the latest research have to say.
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Why Is Storage So Important?
Generally, green beans have a shelf life of up to one year if they are well stored before roasting. And roasted coffee beans are only at their best for a few weeks. Why?
If you find a random passerby and show them green beans that have not been roasted, if they don't know about coffee, it should be difficult to believe that unroasted coffee has no aroma.
The process of roasting develops the flavors and aromas we love, whether it's chocolate, caramel, or floral notes. But as the flavor of coffee we perceive changes, so does its chemical composition.
One of the most important transitions is the breakdown of sugar to form various compounds, including carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide, which remains in the coffee beans, is gradually released after roasting, a process called venting.
Exhaust is a good thing, especially if the coffee is going to be used for espresso. If the beans contain too much carbon dioxide during the brewing process, these gases will prevent the coffee from combining with the water, which will interfere with the extraction of the coffee.
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However, as coffee loses its carbon dioxide, it also begins to become tasteless. When coffee beans are left for too long, two changes occur. The first is that coffee gradually loses the aroma substances that give the coffee its aroma and flavor, which means that it makes the coffee flavor less interesting. This is an unavoidable situation, but we can try to delay this aging process.
However, the second change comes from the effects of oxygen and moisture. When coffee beans come into contact with oxygen and moisture, they age and develop new flavors, often described as bland, woody, cardboard taste. We can control and prevent this part as long as the coffee beans are not in contact with oxygen and moisture.
In other words, roasted coffee beans are more fragile than green beans, especially when it comes to oxygen and moisture. This makes storing coffee a very important part.
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Traditional Roasted Bean Storage
When coffee is ready to be delivered to consumers, many roasters pack the beans in airtight, light-tight aluminum foil coffee bags to prevent light, oxygen, and humidity from affecting the quality of the roasted coffee. These packages usually have air valves, which allow the carbon dioxide of the coffee beans to escape smoothly from the air valve.
Some roasters prefer to pack their beans in resealable packagings, such as zippered bags, which allow the barista or brewer to reseal the packaging after use, minimizing the effects of oxygen.
Others use unsealed coffee bags, and while they are more eco-friendly (depending on the packaging material) and generally less expensive, they are not as effective at blocking oxygen. Therefore, coffee beans stored in these bags will age faster.
In addition to proper packaging, roasters and brewers must also consider where the coffee will be stored, and even opaque, resealable foil bags can't keep out the heat. A cool cabinet or storage room is usually the best option.
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For those who can brew their own coffee at home, coffee bean storage tanks are becoming more and more popular. Air-tight or vacuum-tight effects will keep out oxygen and moisture, and some materials are even heat-resistant. Also, stainless steel is better than plastic, not only because they are more durable but also because the material is less porous. However, for most people who brew their own coffee at home, the bean storage tank usually doesn't hold too many beans, so this type of tank is more suitable for home use than business use.
Roasters also sometimes store their coffee in large commercial storage bins before selling the coffee, although the quality of the containers will vary. Of course, they are large and heavy, neither easy to move when not needed nor suitable for replacing the storage function of a coffee bag.
These choices allow the coffee to be protected to varying degrees, but one constant is that roasted coffee loses its quality very quickly, allowing the beans to age in as little as a few weeks.
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Storing Roasted Coffee Beans In Professional Resealable Bags
While roasted beans are more fragile than green beans, the elements to guard against are the same for both: light, temperature, moisture, and oxygen. Green coffee beans are usually packaged in airtight or airtight packages to keep out moisture, oxygen, and insects. So Charlie Habegger and Carly Ahlenius of Blue Bottle Green Coffee, in partnership with GrainPro, started testing the use of sealed packaging for long-term storage of green and roasted beans and seeing the impact.
GrainPro is a company known in the industry for its use in the airtight packaging of green coffee beans, as well as other agricultural products such as corn and soybeans. However, the company's production goal is to solve the many problems producers face, logistics, and roasters, from coffee tarps that producers use for hygienic drying purposes to interlinings used in trucks.
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Blue Bottle Coffee conducted the experiment between May and September 2018. The coffee they used was Rwanda Nyanza Kirezi harvested in 2017-2018. For the analysis of roasted coffee, the beans were stored in three different ways 24 hours after roasting to give them time to degas. These coffees are:
The quality of these beans is then analyzed using the Specialty Coffee Association's cupping program.
1. The cupping score of the first group of samples packed in decomposable paper bags dropped from 86 to 79 in the past five months. After the first month, it dropped by three points and then dropped by 1.75 in the next month. A total of 7 points down until the end. The taste of the cup at the beginning, from sweet, black tea, cream, chocolate, to the later loose taste, and finally to the deep acid, the flat and the hollow sweet.
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2. Coffee stored in an ultra-sealed ziplock bag but opened for sampling once a month, the score dropped from 86 at the start to 80.88. It moves from caramel-sweet, dried strawberry and lemon to overripe apricot and apple, and finally to the cupping profile of bland, bitter, nauseating, and malty.
3. The last is the sample that remained sealed throughout the process, and the score dropped from 86 at the beginning to 82.88. The coffee starts with apricot, floral, tangerine, and nutty aftertaste, and a hint of vegetables. By the end, the flavors are brown sugar, mild stone fruit, chocolate, and a papery finish.
"It was clear to our team that the GrainPro retained the best tasting period for green and roasted coffee compared to the control group," said Carly Ahlenius, green bean dispatcher at Blue Bottle Coffee.
Five months is far more than the longest shelf life for specialty coffee roasted beans, but, obviously, changing the packaging can greatly extend the optimal period of the beans. For example, airtight bags may not currently be the standard storage method for roasted coffee beans. Still, they do provide protection from moisture and oxygen, preventing bland, stale, woody, and cardboard flavors.
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So, what's the best way to store roasted beans? Just keep away from moisture, light, temperature, and oxygen. Ultra-sealed bags are a great way to extend the peak season and slow down the aging of fine beans (especially long-term storage). Solutions like this could add flexibility to third-wave roasters, especially for smaller companies that may not be able to estimate order volumes on a weekly basis.
No matter which package you choose, there are a few things to figure out: Allow the coffee some time to vent, then seal the package, try not to open the bag, and store them in a cool, dry place. In order to ensure that everyone can drink the best coffee, you can also share this method with you.
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