Simple Espresso Coffee: How to Store Coffee Beans

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Coffee should be stored in glass airtight containers in a cool, dark place, and protected from sharp swings in humidity and temperature. The fridge and freezer are out! Freezing gives one the satisfaction of having done something decisive, at the coffee’s expense. Would you freeze wine? For coffee, the temperature swings attract condensation, and destroy the delicate balance of the oils. The beans suck in food smells like they were first cousins to baking soda, and end up tasting like old ice. In and out of the freezer enough times, and you might as well be drinking dandelion coffee.

The ideal recommendation is to buy half a dozen 8 ounce Ball wide mouthed Jelly Jars (with mason bands and gasket lids), filling the coffee beans at the time of purchase. (The truly obsessed might consider the 4 ounce jars.) A pound of beans will fill most or all of them, expending on the roast. Seal tightly, and label/date the lids using peel-off labels (two cut up address labels will do the dozen; label then cut). Don’t overfill, and keep the gaskets clean, or you won’t get a good seal. Store them in a cool, dark place, and open one at a time as needed. This system minimizes the total exposure to oxygen and humidity.

According to the experiment done by one university, with three blends each spending the month in jelly jars in a cupboard, the fridge, and the freezer, and left each jar return to room temperature before comparing. They were all lousy substitutes for fresh beans, but the colder storage methods actually held up better. It seems that a single visit protected by a good seal escapes most of the dire consequences of fridge storage, and that the one-time damage of freezing is compensated for by the slowing down of time. But why keep coffee this long? Room temperature storage wins hands down for the first week or two.

Bear in mind that coffee beans release CO2, mostly in the first day or two after roasting. If your beans are too freshly roasted, you might think about holding off on “canning” them. In fact, please don’t worry blown up a jar, although sometimes they ping and let out an aromatic whoosh on opening.

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