Ever wondered of the best methods to store coffee beans? This guide will walk you through the proper ways of storing your coffee at home.
Aside from having a freshly roasted, ground, and directly brewed coffee, storing your coffee beans is one of the best strategies of keeping it delicious for an extended amount of time. However, this is only viable if you’re doing it the right way and under the best circumstances to maintain the best quality and freshness every time you brew.
In this guide, you’ll learn more about the best practices on storing your coffee to achieve the best results.
If unaware, coffee beans are the seeds from a coffee plant. These seeds get processed into coffee beans and then later roasted to come up with different types of coffee drinks.
So, let’s delve in!
Why Should You Store Coffee Properly?
One of the most important reasons why we often store our coffee beans is to preserve them. You know, if you rarely brew a cup of coffee and you don’t want your beans to go wrong, storing them in the right way would be the ideal thing to do.
But aside from preserving the coffee beans, why is it advisable to store them accordingly?
Natural elements such as aroma and flavors make any coffee taste great and delicious. However, if the beans are overly exposed to oxygen, and the carbon dioxide isn’t released, their flavors and vibrant nature will dwindle immensely.
This is why you need to make an effort to avoid such incidents from happening. In the end, the benefits of doing it frequently include protecting the coffee’s freshness, efficiency, and keeping it tasting better for a prolonged time.
How Long Does Coffee Beans Stay Fresh?
When stored correctly in the right conditions, coffee can stay fresh for 7-10 days on average.
However, while there’s no harm to consuming long-stored coffee beans, their quality degrades over time, making their tastes rarely bad and undesirable.
That’s one of the reasons why you don’t see them being packaged with an expiration date on their labels. This is because coffee beans are considered or categorized as shelf-stable dry products.
So, when we are talking about 7-10 days, these are the ideal number of days that your coffee beans be consumed after being roasted. But as for spoiling, coffee beans can take years for them to go stale.
Ground Vs. Whole Bean Coffee – The Freshness
As you may know, one of the main differences between ground and whole bean coffee is their freshness levels.
When whole bean coffee is adequately stored under the right conditions, you can enjoy drinking the freshest and tastiest cup of coffee possible.
But if you’ve never had a cup of whole bean coffee immediately before being brewed, then it would be hard to tell the difference in freshness with the ground coffee.
The thing is, while several factors contribute to the quality of your cup, buying whole bean coffee over the ground counterparts makes the flavor and aroma of your brew more noticeable. That is because they can retain their freshness for a long period of time.
So, it’s not a surprise that whole bean coffee aces the competition when it comes to maintaining quality and brightness than ground coffee.
However, most people prefer taking pre-ground coffee because of the convenience it offers during preparation. And there’s nothing wrong with it as long as you consume it shortly or immediately to maximize the quality and the money your spent on that product.
Whole beans also give you a control over your brew. If you want to step up your coffee experience, check our recommended whole bean coffees on Amazon. Grind them at home to any size you want, and brew them at a different variety of coffee beverages.
The 4 Ways to Keep Coffee Beans Fresh for a Long Time
So, what are some of the tricks that you can use to ensure that you are keeping your coffee beans in their best form?
Let’s see how you can do it.
1. Buy the Right Amount of Coffee Beans
If you’ve been drinking coffee for a while, then you might have a clear idea of the number of beans you consume on a daily, weekly, and perhaps monthly basis.
You need that assessment to create a baseline and make a well-informed decision on the number of coffee beans you need to buy.
This way, you’ll avoid purchasing more coffee beans that you can’t consume on a set time frame. The thing is, when this happens, you’ll have an excess supply, which might lose its freshness if stored for a very long time.
So, to at least maximize the bean’s efficiency and freshness, you should only buy the right amount of beans you need. Try to buy smaller batches of freshly roasted coffee more often at your local roaster – enough for one or two weeks.
Another way is to sign up on a subscription service. It is where you pay a service to provide you with freshly-roasted and controlled amount of coffee on a regular basis. I recommend Bean Box because they deliver your coffee fresh, letting you enjoy every cup of joe at its peak flavor.
2. Consider the Roasting Date
The coffee roast dates can help you determine the freshness of your coffee, but they don’t really give you the complete picture.
It’s a little confusing, but don’t baffle yourself between roast date and expiration date. I mentioned above that there’s no expiration date on most coffee labels because they can stay fresh for a more extended period.
However, that doesn’t mean that coffee has an eternal shelf life. Always check the roast date instead of looking for an expiration date. Coffee is in its best form and readily available for consumption anywhere from 7-14 days from the day the coffee underwent the roasting process.
This means that if the coffee was roasted about a week ago, it’s still at its best freshness form, and you would gladly enjoy drinking a cup. So yes, it would be a good idea to consider the roasting date and explore a range of storing period if you want to keep your coffee fresh.
Additionally, you can find coffee roasting styles that enable the coffee to stay fresh from 14-30 days from the moment the coffee was roasted. However, this varies between different coffees, and you need in-depth research and information on the roasting styles as well.
3. Use an Airtight Container
While you’re aiming to find the right coffee beans that suit your needs, exposing your beans to air is a bad thing. As mentioned before, this may degrade the quality of your coffee in just a matter of time.
Most experts agree that keeping coffee fresh involves storing the beans inside a coffee container. And not just any container but an airtight container to help extend your coffee’s shelf life.
This type of container won’t allow the beans to get exposed to oxygen, which dwindles your coffee beans’ vibrant nature and flavors. This will also keep all of those natural and delightful flavors desirable for another week.
Hence, ensure storing your coffee beans in an airtight container to keep them fresh. I suggest using stainless-steel coffee canisters for durability and effectiveness.
I recommend checking these best Stainless Steel Coffee Canisters on Amazon. These materials have excellent shelf-life properties, which are great at maintaining flavors. You can also read our guide on how to find the best coffee container for more tips.
4. Store the Coffee Beans at Room Temperature
Another good way of keeping your coffee beans fresh is by storing them at room temperature. This means that they stay away from moisture, light, and heat, which can have a negative impact on the beans’ flavor and vibrant nature.
The right temperature helps to preserve the natural oils and aromatic compounds of your coffee beans. This also prevents enormous oils from appearing on the surface of the beans from excessive light, heat, or even moisture.
Also, avoid leaving your coffee in rarely used or inspected spaces or places like old kitchen cabinets and storage rooms.
Should I Keep Coffee in the Original Packaging?
Well, this will mostly depend on the brand that you are buying your coffee from. Most sealed coffee bags feature a valve, which allows the gases (Carbon Dioxide) to escape. The reason for this is to avoid trapping those gases inside the coffee packaging forever.
It would be best to let the beans continue releasing carbon dioxide outside the packaging while keeping the flavor in and keeping the oxygen out. (often called “degassing.”)
Of course, coffee packaging is designed to keep those fresh roasted flavors inside, and you may still support it if you want. But once this bag of coffee reached your kitchen, it’s advisable to store the beans inside an airtight container, just as earlier explained.
Therefore, while the packaging is an integral part of distributing coffee, I’d still not recommend keeping your coffee in the original bag right after purchasing your beans.
Should I Store Coffee Beans in the Fridge?
The best way to store coffee beans is to keep them away from heat, moisture, light, and air to retain their best quality and taste. Therefore, storing your coffee at room temperature is the ideal way of making sure that your beans stay fresh.
But as for fridge storage, it is not advisable to freeze coffee beans, especially if you plan to grind and brew them in a few weeks. The fridge is not an ideal place to store any form of coffee bean. While there’s no concrete evidence, the excessive cold temperature might alter the oils and compounds of your coffee, even if it’s settled in the right container.
The cold temperature isn’t what will keep your coffee fresh, but rather the analysis mentioned above. The coffee will just absorb your fridge’s odors and might expose them to other smells and dampness, which will ruin your bean’s vibrant nature and flavors.
Final Thoughts
Properly storing your coffee beans isn’t as complicated as you think. While it’s hard to keep the quality high, there are still effective ways to keep the best quality and delicious taste of your coffee as possible. In the end, it’s all the freshness that matters.
Like this Article? You Might Want to Read: How to Grind Your Coffee Beans Properly