Freezing Coffee Beans: Freshness & Peak Brewing Conditions

There are 5 Coffee Killers that are important for coffee enthusiasts to know about: Light, Heat, Moisture, Air, and Age. Diving into each one will be a separate piece, but I’m going to focus on one of them today. Specifically, the solution for it: You can stop the aging process of your coffee by freezing it.

Why Freeze Coffee?

The goal of freezing coffee is to stop the degassing process and preserve volatile flavor compounds. When done correctly, you’re also shielding your coffee from oxidation. If you can control these three things, then you’re preserving your coffee for as long as you like. First, a little more info about what all that means:

Volatile Flavor Compounds

The coffee roasting process creates volatile compounds and aromas that ultimately give coffee its flavor. Volatile is the key word there: that means they like to escape in the form of gas. The further from the roast date the coffee gets, the more aromas and compounds escape until you’re left with a flat-tasting cup of coffee.

Degassing

Freezing coffee stops the degassing process, and I'll quickly explain what that is: The coffee roasting process creates carbon dioxide buildup in the beans, and the beans give off a lot of this CO2 in the first few days post-roast. Have you ever seen a bag of coffee become plump, like it’s filled with air? That’s very fresh-roasted coffee releasing CO2, and it’s also why coffee bags usually have a one-way valve. Without that valve, bags of coffee can pop open.

When brewing a pour-over, you can see CO2 bubbling up in the coffee bed during the first few pours. Too much CO2 creates an inconsistent brew, but in the case of espresso, you’ll get little to no crema with old coffee. If you freeze your coffee 2 days off-roast, you’ll still have a pretty “gassy” coffee when it thaws. I like to freeze coffee about 10 or so days off-roast: Great for either espresso or pour-over.

Oxidation

Coffee oxidizes like any other food product when exposed to oxygen. You’ve surely seen oxidation when you take a bite of an apple and then forget about it for an hour: it turns brown, doesn’t taste as good, and can even stink up a room. A similar thing happens with coffee, albeit slower than my apple analogy. Later, I’ll show you how to properly portion and store coffee in the freezer, stopping the oxidation process while preserving all the tasty stuff.

Other Reasons to Freeze Coffee

Save on Shipping

When ordering coffee online, most roasting companies have a minimum dollar amount before your order qualifies for free shipping. For example, Whole Latte Love offers free shipping over $75, so I always recommend ordering several bags of coffee at once. When you receive your order, just use what you need as quickly as you want, and store the other bags in the freezer.

Better Particle Consistency

Frozen coffee beans will actually grind more evenly in your grinder. There are two things going on here, and it helps to think about it like this: Harder beans fracture into more even, consistent particles than more brittle beans, and since freezing makes the beans even harder, particle consistency improves. Furthermore, the freezing-cold temperature of the beans encourages moisture in the form of condensation from the air. This is similar to spraying the beans with a little water, known as RDT, or Ross Droplet Technique. This technique reduces static electricity while grinding and is also known to improve evenness and consistency of ground particles.

Look, I Just Really Like Coffee, OK?

When I travel, I like to seek out cool coffee shops and buy a bag or two. After a few coffee shops, I’ve got a backpack full of coffee. Also, one of the main things my friends and family know about me is: Coffee Guy. When holidays and birthdays come around, I’m gifted a LOT of coffee. In either case, I don’t have to drink it all as fast as possible before it loses its freshness, and all thanks to my freezer.

Freezing Coffee Correctly

Decide Your Dose

There are two strategies you’ll need to decide between: Portion out individual doses, or freeze an entire bag. If you’re the kind of person who uses the trick to save on shipping costs by buying several bags at once, you’ll find it easy to just put some full bags directly into the freezer. But if you’ve been gifted a Very Special Coffee that you’d like to hold onto for a long time, it’s often a better idea to portion out one dose at a time.

When you take a bag of coffee out of the freezer, putting it back in will degrade the flavor of the coffee due to moisture getting into the bag, and don’t forget: Moisture is one of the 5 Coffee Killers. In other words, once it’s out, it’s out. This is why it’s best to portion out individual doses if you want to occasionally revisit a stellar coffee for years.

Storing Coffee in the Freezer

The Entire Bag

If you want to freeze an entire bag of coffee, that’s the easiest method of all: Just toss it in the freezer. When it’s time to use it, remember to thaw it first before opening it. No putting it back in!

Individual Doses

For individual portions, you can weigh single-doses and seal them in sandwich bags, or the best method, vacuum-sealed plastic. Since we’re trying to avoid oxidation (Air is another of the 5 Coffee Killers), using a vacuum sealer is best in order to get all of the air out of the package. If you don’t have anything like that (I sure don’t), the next best option is sealable sandwich bags. Glass jars, small tins, and even vials also work, as long as they can seal tightly. If you choose one of those containers, it’s not a bad idea to fill the entire vessel with coffee. This will displace as much air as possible.

Do’s and Don’ts: A Quick Recap

If you skipped to the end of this article, below is the TL;DR for you. When it comes to freezing coffee to preserve its flavor:

Freezing Coffee: Do!

• Decide if you want to freeze an entire bag, or single-doses
• Use containers that can form a tight seal
• Write as much information on the container as you'll need
• Thaw the entire contents or grind the entire container right away
• Order a lot of coffee to get free shipping and thaw the bags as needed

Freezing Coffee: Don’t!

• Use containers or bags that don’t seal tightly
• Open a bag/container before it’s thawed, unless you’re going to grind it all right away
• Put coffee BACK in the freezer after you’ve taken it out

FREEZE!

The solution to making your coffee last longer is to simply throw it in the freezer! This stops the aging process, essentially preserving the quality in a moment in time. If you freeze a bag of coffee 5 days after it was roasted, you can literally wait for years before consuming it. When you finally decide to take it out and drink it, that coffee will still essentially be 5 days off-roast. There are even roasting companies that have frozen coffee ready to ship at a moment’s notice, and when you receive it, it’s still fresh, no matter when it was actually roasted. This can be done with green, unroasted coffee too, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Photography by Quinton Marchand

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