Coffee storage

[Beardy]

The new coffee machine is fab, thank you for asking, but now that our coffee isn’t contained in individually tin foil wrapped portions, we have no specific way to store the coffee. We’re using beans for our day to day coffee and want to use grounds for decaf. The first kilo of beans lasted 8 days although we did have the family here, so typically 2 weeks of home storage. The decaf grounds will be used less frequently, so will probably hang around longer.

Do I need anything special for the storage, or just a couple of kilner jars or similar airtight containers.

Ta.

[Hot Flatus]

I've been using an Airscape container for years. Pricey, but worth it.

[HTFB]

I had a friend whose grandmother in Mumbai insisted that coffee wasn't worth drinking unless you your servants had been up at 4am to roast it that day. But you would need a much better sense of taste than mine to find roasted beans going very much off even if you just leave them in a bag for a couple of weeks. Ground decaff will be happier in a Kilner jar or in a fridge, though a jar in a fridge might be overkill. Also, who cares? It's only decaff.

[Hot Flatus]

I had a friend whose grandmother in Mumbai insisted that coffee wasn't worth drinking unless you your servants had been up at 4am to roast it that day. But you would need a much better sense of taste than mine to find roasted beans going very much off even if you just leave them in a bag for a couple of weeks.

The friend's grandmother was chatting shit. 

Freshly roasted coffee is bland and cardboardy. The flavours develop after roasting, and peak flavour is after about 5 days. I used to roast coffee and it was a bugger of a job to hold off tasting it until it was ready.

[T42]

We’re using beans for our day to day coffee and want to use grounds for decaf.

  Using spent grounds when folk ask for decaf is brilliant. I knew that hanging onto the Brikka was a good idea.

No but seriously though:  I read a study some years ago that compared storage methods.  Firstly, valved bags made no difference. "Vacuum" storage jars made a little, but the O2 still got in every time you took some out.  The best results came from keeping the bags in the freezer and letting them thaw naturally, unopened, before use.

Nowadays I order several 250g bags at once, keep one out for use and bung the others in the freezer.  The coffee that's been kept in the freezer is as good as fresh.

[T42]

Freshly roasted coffee is bland and cardboardy. The flavours develop after roasting, and peak flavour is after about 5 days. I used to roast coffee and it was a bugger of a job to hold off tasting it until it was ready.

It's pretty harsh the first few days.  I gave myself a dose of gastritis from guzzling Huehuetenango 24 hrs after roasting.

[Hot Flatus]

It's just full of CO2. As you know, it just bubbles out of the spouts when it's too fresh.

[robgul]

Out of curiosity what is the sort of consumption of coffee beans/ground per person of the users here?     By weight, not cups per ??

[I'm presently running a measuring test on our usage - just using paper/pen and five-bar gate method of recording ]

[Hot Flatus]

In the espresso machine roughly 18g. Not too precious about it. Not that I drink filter coffee anymore, but when I did I tended to go lighter dose on lighter roasted floral coffees (eg Ethiopian, centrals etc).

[robgul]

In the espresso machine roughly 18g. Not too precious about it. Not that I drink filter coffee anymore, but when I did I tended to go lighter dose on lighter roasted floral coffees (eg Ethiopian, centrals etc).

Ah - sorry, I meant consumption over a period - not "per cup" - the individual measure could be +/-    I'm talking about in espresso machine - not stove pots or other methods.

My measurement experiment in progress is for ?n cups/shots from n gms of coffee over a couple of weeks. 

[Hot Flatus]

2 of these a day so roughly 250g a week. There's two of us doing this, and we drink more over weekends, plus guests, so roughly 1kg per 2-3 weeks

[Zed43]

James Hoffman: The Best Coffee Storage Canister

Why grounds for decaf btw? It appears you have a grinder, so why not buy decaf beans too?

[Ham]

Why grounds for decaf btw? It appears you have a grinder, so why not buy decaf beans too?

This was a humorous interjection suggesting that decaf coffee might effectively be created by brewing spent grounds a second time. HTH

I get through 2.5Kg about every three months, it's kept unopened in the cellar, opened bags in the fridge.

I can give it up any time I want.

[Beardy]

James Hoffman: The Best Coffee Storage Canister

Why grounds for decaf btw? It appears you have a grinder, so why not buy decaf beans too?

We have a Bean to Cup machine (it has a built in grinder). Dr Beardy prefers to have decaf in the evening, and the machine has a bypass shoot for ground coffee which saves us (me!) from having to take the full caf out of the hopper for one or two shots. An alternative would be to only put in the right amount of beans for each cup, but that would be a real faff.

[T42]

I use ~12g / espresso, usually 4 or 5 per day. Around 250g / week given that I drink crap coffee in pâtisseries when I'm out on a ride.

[pcolbeck]

I use 20g per half jug in the filter machine. I must actually measure what the volume of the jug is ...
My grinder has inbuilt scales so its easy to reproduce the same amount every time.

Melitta Calibra, nice grinder but probably won't go fine enough for espresso (which doesn't bother me as I don't have an espresso machine).

[andyoxon]

Consumption?  ~40g beans ground/ 2 persons / day / 1 Litre cafetiere.  So ~140g/wk/person.   

[ravenbait]

I order 3kg of beans every two months for our morning coffee (drip filter machine does 1.5l of coffee for Mr Bait and myself), and we have a pod (I KNOW -- at least we recycle them religiously) machine for our afternoon pick-me up.

I store beans in an Airscape once the bag has been opened. We don't bother storing the unopened bags in the freezer. I can't say I've noticed any significant deterioration.

Sam

[L CC]

Mr Smith is the only coffee drinker in our house. He goes through a bag of locally roasted every couple of weeks. Stored in a no-name airtight container.
Refillable pods. Keeps the pod-convenience and adds a drug-fixing ritual.