Tips to Keep Your Coffee Tasty - How to Store Your Coffee at Home
As someone who works in coffee, I end up consuming more coffee at the roastery and in our cafes than I do at home, so I usually just have one bag of coffee in my kitchen. But every once in a while, I’ll somehow end up with a few extra bags of coffee floating around my home coffee station. If you’re someone that has more coffee than you can go through in a week, or simply want to try and preserve the life of your coffee, continue reading for some quick tips!
Keep the coffee in their original packaging or store in resealable bags.
Most coffees are packaged in heat sealed bags with a one way gas valve. This allows the coffee to continue to de-gas while preventing oxygen from entering the bag. After taking out my beans, I squeeze out as much air as possible and properly seal the bag. For Andytown retail bags, I fold the bag over the tin tie as many times as possible to keep air out. For our bulk 5lb bags of coffee, I recommend storing smaller amounts into ziploc freezer bags.
Store your coffee in a cool, dry, and dark place.
Heat, moisture, and light can age your coffee can speed up the aging process, so store your beans away from direct sunlight and any sources of heat.
What about coffee canisters or vacuum sealed containers?
While coffee canisters are nice, coffee pro James Hoffman discovered in his experiments that there aren’t any drastic differences in flavor when using a coffee canister, and a resealable bag will do just fine. However, vacuum sealing can be a great option if you’re serious about your coffee freshness game and are willing to spend a few extra bucks.
Have an excessive amount of coffee? Store it in the freezer!
There’s a lot of debate about whether or not freezing coffee will help maintain freshness, but coffee pros Umeko Motoyoshi and James Hoffmann say that freezing roasted coffee can help preserve freshness. Just be sure to place your coffee in an airtight container or freezer bag. This will help prevent your coffee from absorbing any aromas from the freezer.
There are two camps for brewing with frozen coffee. You can either pull out your beans straight from the freezer, grind them frozen, and then immediately brew; or you can take out the entire container of frozen coffee in the evening, let it thaw overnight, and brew the next morning. If you do the latter, it’s best to store the remaining coffee in a dry, cool, place instead of returning it to the freezer.
That’s it! Simple, right? I hope you find these tips useful. At the end of the day, if you have coffees that are past their prime for brewing hot coffee, you can always give your aged coffee a second life by preparing it as a cold brew!
