As a coffee enthusiast, it’s your responsibility to store coffee beans properly to ensure its flavor and aroma are preserved until the next brewing. Storing food properly retains freshness, and so does coffee beans. If you keep coffee beans in the wrong place, chances are, aroma and flavor are compromised. You’ll surely never want that to happen.
Is Coffee Best Kept In the Fridge?
The freezer or fridge retains food freshness and keeps your food for a long time, but there’s always an exception to that—coffee beans. Being a coffee lover, ensuring that your high-end coffee beans stay safe until the next brewing encounter. The storage use affects how long does coffee stay fresh inside it, but the fridge or freezer is not a recommended place to keep your coffee. The cold area results in moisture buildup into the coffee’s packaging.
Moisture is your coffee’s number one enemy. Coffee beans can turn bad inside the fridge and dulls the flavor. It is due to the temperature fluctuations which can build up condensation.
Frequent temperature change, especially when you remove and place it back inside the fridge, can exacerbate its condition. The results, your coffee loses its aroma and flavor. Storing your coffee beans in the freezer is only recommended if you have purchased it and won’t use it instantly. You can store the coffee bulk in the ‘freezer’ for a month. Once you’re ready to use it, take it out of the freezer, keep it in a dry, cool place.
- One vital factor that you need to reconsider when storing your coffee is to keep away from air and moisture. It will prolong your coffee beans freshness and retain the aroma and flavor if stored in an airtight jar.
- Never place your coffee in the fridge as it works as an effective deodorizer, which absorbs all aroma inside the refrigerator. It will affect coffee taste when you brew them.
Here how you can retain coffee freshness:
- Avoid direct sunlight, steam, moisture, and heat
- Keep your coffee beans in the dark, airtight container.
- Place beans in the freezer if you have a lot of supply or brewing them all is not an option yet.
- After three days of roasting coffee beans to achieve optimum freshness, use them as quickly as you can.
How To Store Your Coffee Beans
One excellent tip is not to store coffee grounds and grind them fresh when you’re about to brew them. Make sure that you grind your beans to the right size to generate the perfect flavor. Before grinding your coffee beans, make sure that your coffee grinder is clean as it can damage your burr grinder with coffee oil stains or buildup from previous grinding sessions.
Generally, grind coffee beans must be processed instantly. If you have more stocks than average, it’s better to keep them in the freezer until you’re ready to use them. Otherwise, never store coffee grounds for more than seven days.
Paper bags are not an ideal storage option for whole beans, and best to use an airtight container. If you’ll need to store extra coffee beans in the freezer, use resealable vessels, resealable freezer bags, or airtight jar to prevent freezer-burn.
Several coffee manufacturers use a unique resealable bag that enables gas off the bag while blocking any air from coming in. Resealable bags might burst due to coffee beans releasing carbon dioxide.
In case you need to store coffee beans into the freezer, make sure that it won’t last for a month inside or the freshness, aroma, and flavor will get compromised. Thaw the right amount of coffee beans needed and don’t return to the freezer any thawed coffee.
Conclusion
With the right storage procedure and know-how on coffee beans, you can retain flavors and aroma perfectly. All you have to do is keep your coffee beans off moisture, air, heat, steam, or sunlight. Purchasing the best coffee beans allows you to enjoy high-quality coffee at the comfort of your home, anytime, and anywhere.