If you have been a fan of our page you might have heard about single dosing coffee. It is the process of weighing out coffee beans before brewing your coffee. In this article, we will go over what single dosing coffee is, why baristas use it, different ways to single dose coffee, and whether it's worth the effort for you.
What is Single Dosing Coffee?
Single dosing coffee is the practice of grinding only the amount of coffee beans that you need for each brew. Rather than storing a large batch of coffee beans in your hopper, you weigh out the specific amount of coffee you need for each brew. This method ensures that you use fresh coffee beans for each brew, which can significantly improve the taste of your coffee.
A big part of why single dosing coffee is becoming increasingly popular is due to how coffee ages, When coffee is in a warm humid environment with lots of oxygen the beans go stale quicker and when it comes to freezing single doses of coffee you remove or minimise a lot of these variables.
As well as this, single dosing your coffee compared to having a bag of beans in the freezer and constantly exposing that coffee to new air is a much slower way to age your coffee beans.
Why Do Baristas Single Dose Coffee Beans?
Baristas single dose coffee beans for a couple different reasons, to ensure consistency and freshness. The main is to preserve the coffee, often when baristas single dose coffee they will freeze their coffee as well. The biggest contributing factors as to why coffee goes stale is Air, Temperature, Time, Moisture and Sunlight. And so storing your coffee in a single dose centrifuge test tube you can minimise the air and temperature and in turn can keep you coffee in the freezer for years.
Different Ways to Single Dose Coffee
As we previously spoke about you can store your single doses in the freezer however depending on your set / work flow it may be worth keeping your doses out of the freezer and in arms reach.
This would be perfect for cafes with a high coffee turn over as the coffee really wont be negatively effected by sitting on a bench for a day.
Is It Worth Single Dosing Coffee?
When using a single dose grinder like the Varia VS3 grinder or a coffee hand grinder I believe it is always worth single dosing, regardless of whether you freeze your doses or keep them at room temp.
Single dosing coffee is a great way to speed up your workflow and means that your coffee will stay fresher for longer.
Easiest way to dose up coffee beans
We have 2 single dose products that are perfect for dosing up coffee beans.
The first are our Centrifuge Tubes, they are 50ml and can fit around 20g of coffee (this is always an approximation as different coffees have different densities). They are made from a medical grade Polypropylene and feature a white sticker perfect from writing information about the coffee.
The centrifuge tubes feature a screw cap that has a much better seal, so you can chuck your dose into the freezer with out the coffee coming loose.
The second is our Basic Barista Dosing Cups these can fit around 20-25g of coffee and are also flat on the bottom of the cup so they can be easily stacked.
These dosing cups are also compatible with 58mm portafilters and can be used to grind into and then dispensed into the portafilter prior to tamping and pulling a shot. Also the best thing about these dosing cups is the lid has a shiny white plastic that is perfect for writing info about the coffee using a whiteboard marker. No more wasted tape just write, dose and wipe.
While these are not the most secure and won't attach securely compared to the Centrifuge tubes, when used on a bench in a cafe they don't have to secure too tight as it's more important to access your coffee quickly and these wont be left rummaging around in a freezer draw.