The practice of single dosing coffee and freezing beans have emerged as game-changers in the coffee industry. These techniques combined are able to preserve the freshness and lock in the taste of your coffee beans and can significantly increase the workflow of you baristas.
This comprehensive article delves into the nuances of freezing coffee beans and single dosing, uncovering the reasons behind their popularity, the impact they have on coffee quality, and how easily they can be integrated into your daily coffee routine / workflow.
What Does Freezing Coffee Do?
Coffee ages, and just like food starts to loose its freshness and go stale so does coffee beans. Freezing coffee beans locks in their flavour and keeps coffee tasting great for so much longer. This process helps to preserve their essential oils, aromas, and flavours, which are crucial for a rich and satisfying cup of coffee. Oxidation, the enemy of coffee freshness, is also dramatically slowed down in the freezer, thereby extending the beans' lifespan and ensuring that each brew retains the beans' optimal flavour profile and freshness. This method is particularly beneficial for those who purchase high-quality or specialty coffee beans, as it allows for long-term storage without a compromise in taste.
Why You Should Freeze Coffee
The rationale behind freezing coffee is multifaceted. Primarily, freezing coffee beans offers a practical solution to the problem of coffee degradation over time. Specialty coffees, often harvested in specific seasons, can be enjoyed year-round through freezing. Moreover, this technique is economically advantageous, allowing coffee enthusiasts to buy beans in bulk during peak seasons and store them for extended period of time when that region is out of season. For those who value the freshness and maintain their coffee's flavour profile, freezing ensures that each cup is as vibrant and tasty as the last.
What Is Single Dosing Coffee?
Single dosing is the practice of measuring out preemptively the exact amount of coffee needed for a single brew. This method has been mainly adopted by cafes and specialty coffee brew bars as an efficient means to grind the exact amount of coffee when it is ordered.
For most cafes, they typically single dose their single origin espresso option and decaf as their primary grinder is filled up with their normal house blend. For some cafes and brew bars that want to increase their range of exotic and specialty coffee offerings they will have a freezer with tubes already organised and marked, this means they could potentially have hundreds of coffees all on offer at the same time (impossible to do with out freezing and single dosing).
Lastly the home barista, often the challenges that a home barista faces is quite different to those in a fast paced cafe. Usually home baristas will enjoy a coffee so much they want to preserve or share this around to their friends, using single dosing coffee tubes you can easily label and carry these around with you.
As well as this, home baristas often use hand grinders or single dose coffee grinders, in fact these single dosing coffee grinders are mainly popular at home as people who make coffee at home don't necessarily need to have a hopper full of coffee beans.
Does Freezing Coffee Make a Difference?
Indeed, freezing coffee makes a substantial difference in preserving your coffee beans freshness and lock in the flavours. Many within the coffee community, from casual drinkers to seasoned baristas, have noted marked improvements in flavour and aroma retention when beans are frozen compared to beans that are at room temperature. By mitigating the effects of oxidation moisture exposure and temperature, freezing ensures that the coffee's nuanced flavours are maintained from the first to the last cup. When combined with single dosing, this method guarantees that each brew is as fresh as possible.
Can I Single Dose on My Coffee Grinder?
The ability to single dose with your coffee grinder depends on its design and functionality. Grinders equipped with hoppers are typically intended for storing a quantity of beans, which may not be ideal for single dosing as the weight of the beans actually maintains consistent grinding for each shot.
However as single dosing is becoming more popular coffee grinders are increasingly designed to accommodate single dosing, enabling precise control over each brew. It's important to understand your grinder's capabilities and limitations to optimise your experience but to also not cause damage to your coffee grinder.
Single Dosing Coffee Tip
If you are single dosing for a 15gram pour over add an extra gram of coffee or so in each dose, this does add more steps to your work flow however having that extra gram of coffee can be super useful.
Before you grind your coffee, set the grinder to you predetermined grind size and run that gram of coffee through it. This does 2 things, it makes sure that there is none of the previous coffee left in the grinder and it also helps to check the grind size of your coffee before grinding the whole dose.
I have found this to be a super useful tip and while it might seem wasteful, just think about all the coffee doses I have avoided wasting by not checking the correct grind size.
Single Dosing Coffee Benefits
Single dosing transcends mere convenience, offering a host of benefits that cater to both the enthusiast and the professional:
Versatility & convenience: Enjoy a variety of beans without the need to empty and clean the hopper frequently.
Economic Efficiency: Minimises waste by using only what is needed, and when combined with reusable dosing containers, it's an eco-friendly alternative.
Enhanced Workflow: For cafes, prepping doses ahead of time simplifies the brewing process, allowing for faster, more efficient service without sacrificing quality.
Several practical solutions exist for those looking to adopt single dosing:
Single Dose Centrifuge Tubes: Provide an accurate, convenient way to measure and store individual doses.
Plastic Dosing Cups: Offer a straightforward, accessible option for day-to-day use, these are also stackable and perfect for cafes with a low - medium offering of coffee beans.
Vacuum Sealing Coffee: An ideal method for long-term freshness, vacuum sealing protects against oxidation and moisture.
Vacuum Canisters: Are a great way to store more coffee at one and keep it fresher for longer, unfortunatley these cant be frozen. We have the Fellow Atmos canisters available for smaller amounts of coffee beans and the Airscape coffee canisters available for larger ammounts of beans.
