How to store coffee beans and extend their shelf life? How long will the coffee beans last?
Bean bakers will carefully observe the characteristics of raw beans, through cup tests to ensure the quality of the sample, and then can find out the best way to roast the beans, and try many ways to find out how to lead to the best flavor of this coffee.
But what if you make so much effort, but the quality of the coffee is damaged because of the poor storage system of the roasted coffee? Or is it that you can't sell roasted coffee as quickly as expected, and the beans are starting to age and stale in the baking factory?
Roasted coffee is easily affected by many factors: light, temperature, moisture, and oxygen, the most influential. Good storage should maintain the freshness of the coffee and maintain its flavor characteristics for as long as possible, so that the drinker can enjoy the coffee at its best. Let's take a look at the traditional best preservation methods and what the latest research says.
Why is storage so important?
In general, if raw beans are well stored before baking, the shelf life can be up to one year. However, the best taste period of roasted coffee beans is only a few weeks. Why?
If you find a random passer-by and show them unbaked raw beans, if they don't know anything about coffee, it should be hard to believe that unbaked coffee has no flavor.
The baking process develops our favorite flavors and aromas, whether it's chocolate, caramel or flowers. But with the changes in the flavor of coffee we feel, their chemical composition will also change.
One of the most important changes is the breakdown of sugar into various compounds, including carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide left in the coffee beans is gradually released after baking, a process called exhaust.
Exhaust is a good thing, especially if the coffee is used to make espresso. If the beans contain too much carbon dioxide during brewing, these gases will block the combination of coffee and water, thus interfering with coffee extraction.
However, when coffee loses carbon dioxide, it also begins to become tasteless. In the Coffee World Map, James Hoffmann says two changes occur when coffee beans are kept for too long. "first of all, coffee will gradually lose its aromatic substances, which give coffee aroma and flavor, which means that the flavor of coffee will become less interesting. "it's inevitable, but we can try to delay the aging process.
The second change, however, comes from the effects of oxygen and moisture. When coffee beans come into contact with oxygen and moisture, they age and develop new flavors, often described as insipid, wood and cardboard. This part can be controlled and prevented as long as coffee beans are not exposed to oxygen and moisture.
Traditional storage method of cooked beans
When coffee is ready to be delivered to consumers, many bakers put coffee beans in sealed, opaque aluminum foil bags to prevent light, oxygen and humidity from affecting the quality of coffee beans. These packages are usually equipped with air valves so that the carbon dioxide of coffee beans can be discharged smoothly from the air valves.
Some bakers prefer to put coffee beans in repeatable sealable packaging, such as chain-designed bags, which allows baristas or brewers to re-seal the packaging after use to minimize the impact of oxygen.
Some people also use unsealed bean bags, although they are more environmentally friendly (depending on the material of the package) and are usually cheaper, but they do not effectively block oxygen. As a result, coffee beans stored in these bags will age faster.
In addition to the correct packaging, bean bakers and brewers must also consider the location of the coffee, even opaque, re-sealable aluminum foil bags can not block the high temperature. Shady cabinets or storerooms are usually the best choice.
For those who can make coffee at home, coffee storage cans are becoming more and more popular. The effect of airtight or vacuum sealing will isolate oxygen and moisture, and even some materials are heat-resistant. In addition, stainless steels are better than plastics, not only because they are more durable, but also because materials have fewer pores. However, most people who make their own coffee at home usually don't put too many beans in the bean storage jar, so this kind of jar is more suitable for household use than for commercial use.
Before selling coffee, bean bakers sometimes store coffee in large commercial buckets, although the quality of the containers varies. Of course, they are big and heavy, and they are not easy to move when they are not needed, nor are they suitable to replace the storage function of coffee bean bags.
These choices give coffee varying degrees of protection, but the same thing is that roasted coffee quickly loses its quality and can age the beans in just a few weeks.
Store cooked coffee beans in professional sealed bags
Although cooked beans are more fragile than raw beans, the two elements that need to be prevented are the same: light, temperature, moisture and oxygen. Raw coffee beans are usually sealed or airtight to protect against moisture, oxygen and insects. As a result, Charlie Habegger and Carly Ahlenius of the Blue bottle Coffee Raw Bean Division, in collaboration with GrainPro, began testing the use of sealed packaging for long-term storage of raw and cooked beans and to observe their effects.
GrainPro is known in the industry for its use in sealed packaging of raw coffee beans and other agricultural products such as corn and soybeans. However, the company's production goal is to solve many of the problems faced by producers, logistics operators and bean bakers, from coffee tarpaulins used by producers for sanitary drying to interlinings for transport in trucks.
Blue bottle coffee was tested from May to September 2018. The coffee they use is the Luanda Nyanza Kirezi harvested in 2017-2018. For the analysis of roasted coffee, the beans are stored in three different ways 24 hours after roasting, giving them time to exhaust. These coffees are:
Decomposable paper bags (this is the standard storage method for blue bottle coffee), open the bag once a month for sampling
GrainPro 15kg super sealed chain bag, sampling once a month
GrainPro 15kg super-sealed chain bag was kept sealed during the five-month experiment.
The quality of these coffee beans is analyzed by the cup test procedure of the boutique coffee association.
1. In the first group of samples in a decomposable paper bag, the cup score dropped from 86 to 79 in five months, three points in the first month, 1.75 points in the next month, and a total drop of 7 points in the end. The first cup test flavor, from sweet, black tea, cream, chocolate, to later loose taste, and finally to low acidity, insipid and empty sweetness.
two。 Coffee stored in a super-sealed chain bag, but sampled once a month, the score dropped to 80.88 from 86 at the beginning. Its taste changes from caramel sweetness, dried strawberries and lemon to overripe apricot and apple flavors, and finally to insipid, bitter, nauseous and malt cups.
3. Finally, the sample remained sealed throughout the process, with a score of 82.88, down from 86 at the beginning. At first, the coffee has aromas of apricots, flowers, oranges and nuts with a hint of vegetables. In the end, the flavor is brown sugar, mild drupe fruits, chocolate, and a paper finish.
Carly Ahlenius, the raw bean dispatcher for Blue bottle Coffee, said: "our team is well aware that GrainPro retains the best taste period for raw and cooked beans compared with the control group. "
Five months is far longer than the longest shelf life of boutique coffee beans, but it is clear that changing the packaging can greatly prolong the best taste period for beans. For example, sealed bags may not be the standard storage method for ripe coffee beans at present, but they do provide protection against moisture and oxygen, avoiding the smell of plain, stale, woody and cardboard.
So, what's the best way to store ripe beans? Just stay away from moisture, light, temperature and oxygen. Super-sealed bag is a good way to prolong the best taste period and slow down the aging of fine beans (especially for long-term preservation). Solutions like this can increase the flexibility of the third wave of coffee bakers, especially for small companies that may not be able to estimate orders on a weekly basis.
No matter which package you choose, there are a few things to figure out: give the coffee some time to exhaust, then seal the package, try not to open the bags and leave them in a cool, dry place. In order to ensure that everyone can drink the best coffee, you can also share this method with you.
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