Single dosing coffee beans and other coffee storage solutions

You have too much coffee, we all know that your coffee is best slurped straight away and after a month or so it will start to go stale :o Don't freak out, everything is going to be ok. 

Welcome to the wonderfull world of coffee preservation, in this blog post we will walk through the top ways to storing your coffee beans and help you decide on the best way for you.

Cafe vs Home:

Different people have different requirements, cafes burn through kilos of coffee per day while home brewers can sit on a 250g bag for weeks. In saying this, some cafes will offer pour over and maybe only move through a small amount of filter coffee per week.

Another consideration besides quantity would be the work flow, cafes need to be quick and efficient where as home brewers can take their time and don't necessarily need to be the most efficient. Please keep in mind that this is a generalisation and your circumstances may be different.

The best way to extend the life of your coffee:

In the next topic we are going to discus all of the options on how to store your coffee beans so we will need to quickly cover all of the factors that can effect the deterioration of your coffee beans. 

Air & Moisture:

Air and moisture can quickly lower the lifespan of your coffee beans but by removing the air (and in-turn moisture) you can avoid this variable. One solution is vacuum or air-tight canisters, typically vacuums can remove all of the air while air-tight removes 'most' of the air. While vacuum and air-tight canisters are a common solution to coffee storage there is also vacuum sealed bags that offer a complete seal. Constantly opening and closing a bag of coffee will re expose your coffee to fresh air.

Light:

Light degrades coffee because of the uv rays that speed up the degrading process, keeping your coffee away from light is good practice. Some coffee storage solutions such as glass canisters or plastic tubes are transparent, to easily get around this you can store your canister in a cupboard or just anywhere away from light that is still accessible.

Heat & Time:

Beans don't like warm temperatures, keep them cold, dark and fresh ;) Cold beans will degrade slower than warm beans and warmer temperatures will speed up the deterioration.

Solutions:

There is a growing range of products becoming available in the coffee bean storage space. As discussed previously we recommend storing your coffee away from light, moisture, air and in a cold environment. However all of these factors apply for storing coffee in the short term, freezing coffee for much longer can be achieved by freezing your coffee beans.

Freezing coffee beans keeps them fresh and tasty for a considerably longer amount of time. You can freeze your coffee beans in many different ways. The first method is by far the easiest way, before opening your bag of coffee beans squeeze out any air and place your coffee in the freezer. This is a good way to freeze your coffee however be prepared to use your coffee quickly once you defrost your beans, also try not to open and close your coffee beans from the freezer as this re-exposes your beans to fresh air each time.

Another solution is to individually vacuum seal your coffee bean doses, this is done by pre-weighing your coffee beans and vacuum sealing or you can use a reusable alternatively such as centrifuge tubes. These centrifuge tubes prevents you from re exposing your coffee to air and can be used over and over again. These tubes work great most of the time however sometimes they can't fit the desired dose size due to the variation of different coffees.