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5 Ways to Keep Your Coffee Fresh
Keeping your coffee beans fresh is one of the most important things you can do to improve your cup of joe’s taste. Please note that I wrote coffee beans, not coffee grounds.
1. Go With Whole Beans
If you want fresher and better-tasting coffee, you are going to have to start buying whole beans instead of the pre-ground stuff. If you enjoy inferior cups of coffee, …then just keep doing what you’ve been doing.
The reason the whole bean trumps pre-ground coffee is that the moment you grind your coffee, it begins to lose the essential coffee bean oils that give coffee its great flavor. When exposed to air, ground coffee immediately begins to get stale. So if you have a bowl of pre-ground coffee sitting next to your coffee maker throughout the week, you are going to want to make some changes.
2. Store in a Cool Place (NOT the freezer)
It’s a somewhat contentious debate, but I’m pretty sure that the consensus about putting coffee in the freezer is that it’s not a good move. When coffee is exposed to moisture, it absorbs it like a sponge. Why? Because the coffee, like a sponge, is porous. It sucks up whatever flavors are in your freezer, and this is the last thing you want.
Furthermore, when exposed to a frozen environment, coffee beans lose their flavorful oils. This is the last thing you want, so please, stop storing your coffee in the freezer.
Instead, keep your coffee in a cool place that isn’t directly exposed to sunlight. Got a cupboard? Perfect? A Pantry? Excellent!
3. Airtight is Right
We’ve already touched on the fact that air and moisture are two of the coffee’s worst enemies, so it would make sense that we would want to protect our coffee from these evil elements in any way, shape, and form. Enter: the airtight container.
You’ve seen these things. People are storing all kinds of things in them these days, from cereal too, well, coffee.
You may even want to take it a step further and buy a canister that is specially made for keeping your coffee beans away from air.
4. The One Way Valve Bag
Often you will find pre-ground coffee (and sometimes whole bean) in vacuum-sealed bags. Well, while this may be acceptable for pre-ground coffee, it certainly is not acceptable for whole bean coffee. Here’s why:
- When coffee is first roasted, it emits CO2 for several days after the roast
- Yet, it needs to be protected from the air (O2)
- Therefore, a one-way valve bag that allows CO2 to escape without allowing O2 to enter is essential to coffee freshness.
So please, please, only buy whole bean coffee bags that come in one way valve bags. Additionally, make sure that there is as little space as possible between the top of the bag on the coffee beans (i.e., little air space).
5. Grind Right Before Brewing
Before I tell you to do what the heading above says, let me say this: get a burr grinder.
See, the thing with cheap blade grinders is that they expose coffee to yet another one of its arch enemies: heat. This is just one of the issues with blade grinders, but in this case, it’s the only one you should concern yourself with when it comes to your coffee’s freshness.
Two of our favorite burr grinders here at TopRatedCoffeeMakers.com are the Capresso Infinity Burr Grinder and the Bodum Bistro.
Now that that’s out of the way, it’s important to repeat that coffee must be ground right before you brew it. As we already learned earlier, as soon as your coffee is ground, it is completely exposed to air. Each second you let it sit, the staler it becomes. So once again, make sure that you are grinding right before you brew.
How To Keep Coffee Fresh With Vacuum Sealer
Now, we are going to talk about concerning the storage space associated with Coffee generally. Within this article, all of us primarily will concentrate on the actual storage space associated with Coffee.
Simply, because many people use pre-ground Coffee – buy possibly within Vacuum-sealed cans, or even within the ground in the supermarket — all of us believed this helpful to commit a good article towards the correct storage space associated with Coffee by using Vacuum Sealer.
It is fascinating that many people used a lot of ground Coffee about many years, and absolutely none understood means for the “best” storage space associated with ground Coffee. Many people do not consider it whatsoever (and they often consume dried-out and stagnant Coffee) and have simply turn out to be used to the lackluster flavor associated with incorrectly saved Coffee.
Vacuum Sealing & Freezing:
Undoubtedly, the good thing that you can maintain ground Coffee refreshing would be to Vacuum-seal this. Vacuum sealing machines are right now affordable, and it is currently available in a department or even an appliance store. These types of Vacuum Sealers use Food-Saver luggage (which are offered within rolls), and several of these include unique canisters that you could use with these.
How to keep your Coffee fresh with vacuum sealer:
If you plan to freeze the Coffee for longer-term storage space, then you can follow the given instructions.
- You must keep the Coffee inside the original packaging. Make multiple these kinds of deals right into a Food-Saver bag.
- While sealing with Vacuum Sealer, leave behind regarding an inch at the end of the bag to fit starting as well as resealing of the bag. (Alternatively, you can pour the ground coffee from the original packaging straight into the Food-Saver bag) In any case, vacuum sealing the bag after storing this within the freezer.
- Keep the open edge of the bag in the Vacuum Sealer.
- Now wait and let the air to be out of the bag
- Now get your Coffee fresh for a long time.
How long Coffee can be kept fresh with Vacuum Sealer.
As a “rule of thumb,” freezing ground Coffee keeps the freshness about up to two years when the Coffee continues to be Vacuum-sealed; however, this is not more than six months if this has not. Furthermore, you should freeze (e.g., for in-pantry storage), Vacuum-sealed Coffee will keep the freshness about five to six months. Nonetheless, when the Coffee is not Vacuum-sealed, expense maintains refreshing over a month.
Therefore Vacuum sealing will certainly prolong the life from the Coffee with an element of 4-5X, as well as freezing this (after Vacuum sealing, it) will certainly lengthen the lifetime through an additional element of 4-5X. Still, it is far from a great idea to freeze the Coffee without having Vacuum sealing this first.
Why use a vacuum sealer:
They are simply because of moisture within your freezer may penetrate the Coffee as well as decide upon, therefore providing various freezer odors towards the Coffee launched ultimately utilized.
Curiously, you should use vacuum sealing; entire roasted Coffee beans, affected through freezing a lot more than ground Coffee simply because you will see much more airflow (and therefore, crystallization) within a package associated with entire Coffee beans compared to the package associated with tightly packed ground coffee.
When you wish to use Coffee, you have vacuum-sealed as well as freezing, open up the bag, as well as eliminate just as much Coffee while you will certainly use within a week, after that re-seal the bag, as well as return this towards the freezer. Enable the Coffee, which you required to arrive at room temperature before brewing this.
Bottom Line:
Generally, you ought not to keep Coffee (that is not Vacuum-sealed, neither frozen) over two-3 weeks. Just buy just as much Coffee since you are prone to use in this interval. In case you buy in addition to that, you need to truly Vacuum seal a portion from it about later on use, after which freeze this. (Again, do not merely freeze this without having Vacuum sealing, this first.)