How To Store Coffee Beans Long Term?
Coffee is one of the most popular beverage people love to drink because of its health benefits such as keeping one’s heart in good condition. It can also be used in cooking and baking foods as one of the ingredients. Its condition depends on some factors like how it is being prepared, expiry date and how it is stored.
Most coffee drinkers love to drink their cup of coffee early in the morning. It has the aroma that is very invigorating and inviting to start the day. If you prefer to brew your own coffee and want to drink it straight from the beans. When you have this preference, it is important to know how to store your coffee beans and keep it fresh. But how to store coffee beans long term?
Coffee beans are at their best quality for about 15 days after roasted and still flavorful for 30 days. After this, it starts losing its flavor and considered as stale. Its first 15 days upon roasting, you will find it incredible where you can have a smooth and delicious cup of coffee. However, if you store your dried coffee well, it can last even a year without going bad and without losing its flavor. The following are some of the ways to best store your coffee beans long term.
So How To Store Coffee Beans Long Term?
Keep your beans in an airtight containers and in a cool dry place. When your coffee beans are exposed to moisture, air and heat, greater chances that it’ll go bad easily. When coffee is expose in high humidity, it tends to take in moisture, allowing the formation of molds causing loss of flavor. Thus, if you want to preserve the freshness of your beans you must store it in a dark airtight containers at room temperature. If it happened that you’ll expose it to light it might ruin its taste or flavor. Always store your beans in a dark and cool place. You may repackage it if you plan to have it for a longer time. You may invest in an airtight sealed coffee containers.
You can expect a fresh coffee if you sealed it in a foil-lined, Ziploc-top valve bags for about six to nine months. Other lower-quality valve bags could also last the coffee for three months. If your coffee comes in package already, you can repackage it in a paper or a bulk bag and transfer it to an airtight, opaque canister. Always make it a habit to check if your container is clean.
Purchase the right amount. Keep in mind that coffee beans start losing its freshness once it gets roasted. So you should always buy freshly roasted coffee in a retail packaging or just enough amount of what you’re needing at the moment. It is wiser to only grind the number of beans you need to limit its exposure to air. It can better retain its flavor you will expose it to light or air.
Coffee contains oil and it can gets rancid. And if these oils get into the inside of the storage container, over time it can caused your coffee smells rancid. To completely avoid this, you can use a foil bag only once. According to coffee experts, whole-bean coffee exposed in the air or oxygen can have a stale flavor in about 10-14 days while a ground coffee taste stale after 24 hours. Why? Because its surface area is more exposed to oxygen where oxidation begins. The freshness of a coffee is a critical thing to maintain so experts recommended to quickly drink it right after roasting. After the coffee bean is roasted, a degassing process takes place wherein a process that leaks aroma and flavor. It can inflate about 20% during the process.
Some considerers freezing or refrigerating the coffee to keep it fresh however, it is also important to consider that coffee absorbs moistures from the air and it could greatly affect its odor and taste. But if you do refrigerate it make sure to store it in an airtight container and quickly remove your coffee as soon as you need it more than a week at a time. As what a coffee expert says, “Treat your coffee like a bread. Keep it out of direct sunlight; keep it cool and dry; don’t refrigerate.”
Again, the freshness of your coffee also depends on how responsible you are in storing it. How it is being packed would greatly influence to the freshness of your coffee. If it is packed in bags with a thin lining, it can’t get its freshness for so long. Maybe it could last for a week and after that it will not taste fresh.
The best packaging is sealed like a one-way valve foil bags with pinholes to let gas out but not letting outside air to enter. With this, you can still enjoy the freshness of your coffee. Make sure to keep your beans away from any source of light and store it at room temperature.