We get a lot of questions from our customers about freezing coffee. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea? In this article, I will give you some pointers to keep your coffee fresher longer, with a little help from your chill-chest.
Firstly, let’s define fresh coffee. For the sake of this article, we’ll consider coffee that has been roasted within three weeks fresh.
Generally, at Hammer Coffee Roasting we recommend that you purchase fresh coffee as needed. Store your coffee away from light and excess heat, in the bag that it arrived in. If you consume your coffee within 3 weeks, my friend you are positioned firmly in the window of coffee flavour nirvana (cue angels singing!). However, this recommendation is biased. It assumes that you can source a ready supply of freshly roasted beans from your most-favourite(est) roastery in the world, ahem, that’s us…
But what about Andrew? I hear you ask. No, you didn’t ask… Hmm, okay, allow me to introduce you to Andrew. Andrew has been a devoted Hammer Coffee customer, for many, many years. Last year Andrew moved from Whistler to Alberta, which made Andrew sad and us even sadder (did I mention that he is a very good customer?). Andrew could no longer receive his weekly bag of Guatemala Single-Origin coffee delivered to his door, fresh as fresh can be.
A cool solution to Andrew’s coffee sadness.
By ordering a bulk amount of fresh coffee and storing it in his freezer, Andrew is able to keep his favourite coffee fresh for months.
Freezing coffee is easy; however, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind:
- Freeze coffee when it’s fresh. Old, stale coffee beans are nasty and will just take up precious space in your chill chest. Remember, freeze-when-fresh.
- Thaw just enough coffee for a week and don’t refreeze your coffee after thawing.
- Thaw coffee slowly on the counter overnight. By bringing your coffee back to room temp slowly, you allow time for any condensation that forms on the outside of the beans to dry, making grinding easier and more consistent.
We have tested freezing coffee for up to 3 months with good results.
I hope this article encourages you to experiment with freezing your coffee. Let me know how you make out.
