Keeping Your Coffee Fresh
If you love fresh coffee, be certain to purchase Unroasted Cofee Beans. By roasting and grinding your beans right before you brew your coffee, you will get the freshest coffee you can easily have!
Roasting your own beans is quite uncommon since:
- You need fairly expensive equipment.
- You need the talent to roast them properly
- A well-aired kitchen to make certain the aromas are quickly removed from your house.
Some Coffee Roasters are better than others, and are worth trying if you truly desire really fresh coffee.
How Long Does Coffee Keep?
Fortunately, even roasted, coffee beans will maintain their freshness for a reasonable amount of time. Freshly roasted beans usually release small amounts of carbon dioxide which helps keeping oxygen away from the bean, delaying spoilage. When stored in an airtight container with a drying agent, they’ll retain their good flavor and aroma for around a week.
Naturally, the closer to roasting, you grind, brew and drink your coffee, the fresher it will be. But even after a few days of roasting your beans, you can still make a stellar grind and a superior coffee brew. After two weeks the flavor may still be acceptable, even though aroma will no longer be first rate. Whole bean coffee stored at even optimum conditions will usually be dull after a month.
Key to getting a good cup from purchased roasted beans is to ensure that the skin is unbroken. When that happens, all bets are off. Oils underneath the skin and inside the bean will deteriorate unless frozen, in which case the brew will never be first rate.
How to Store Coffee
When storing beans, be sure to use an airtight container. A glass jar of the type used for instant tea grounds is tempting, but inadequate - there is still too much leakage around the lid. A good glass jar with a rubber seal is best. Many online vendors sell just the ticket. Be sure to store the jar in a cool, dark place since not only air, but also heat and light can contribute to spoiling beans.
Even better, but more expensive, are Coffee Storage containers which flush air with an inert gas, then inject the coffee beans which then give off CO2, providing natural protection against spoilage. Beans stored in this way can keep their freshness for several weeks.
Grinding Your Own Coffee
We always recommend grinding your own coffee. It is easy to do, fairly inexpensive, and fun! It is amazing to notice the difference in taste by simply grinding your own beans.
Good Coffee Grinders are available at moderate prices, are generally easy to use and are not difficult to clean. Many are automated to the point that with very minor experimentation, it’s possible to arrive at consistently good grinds.
Since grinding necessarily breaks the bean skin the same ‘oil spoilage’ problem can arise if the grind isn’t used within a few days. Like roasted beans, only more so, any grounds not consumed within a day should be packed in a desiccating cannister. Those cannisters contain a drying agent, usually beneath a mesh at the bottom, that keep moisture from introducing mold or excess oxygen into the grounds.
If not stored in a desiccating cannister, coffee grounds will lose much of their flavor within a few hours. Oils will evaporate and, exposed to the air and moisture within the jar, the grounds will deteriorate.
For the freshest cup of coffee, grind only what you intend to brew and drink everything brewed within an hour. With modern, moderate cost machines there’s no longer any reason to suffer second-rate coffee.
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