The Best Way to Store Coffee Beans at Home
There is no smell like freshly roasted coffee beans (we’re not biased or anything). And when you come away from the roasters, you want to ensure that that precious bag of beans stays just as fresh, aromatic and delicious as when just roasted.
We get it. There’s nothing worse than stale, tasteless coffee. But we can help! We’ve pulled together our tips on the best way to store coffee beans at home.
The Best Way to Store Coffee Beans at Home
Buy fresh, buy often.
OK, so it’s not really a storage tip per se. But without a doubt, the best way to keep your coffee beans fresh at home is to buy them in smaller qualities, more often. The unfortunate truth is that roasting changes the chemical and physical structure of the beans causing them to lose flavour more quickly over time. So while a green, unroasted bean can last up to two years, roasted beans are really only good for two to six months (and, honestly, it’s really about 30 days for maximum flavour).
While good storage tips will help extend the life and flavour of your favourite roasted beans, it’s best to buy fresh, and buy often. (So if you want to stock your shelves for the next pandemic, green coffee beans are the only way to go.)
Think airtight, dark and cool.
Roasted coffee beans hate light, heat, air and moisture – things we have in abundance here in Australia. In fact, your beans would really prefer to be living in an underground cave in a tundra (as long as the yaks don’t eat them). Unfortunately, that’s not really an option. So the best way to store coffee beans at home here in Oz, is to keep them away from light, heat, air and moisture as much as possible.
Opaque, air-tight, non-absorbent containers.
Use an opaque (so no light gets in), air-tight (so no air gets in), non-absorbent (so no moisture gets in) container to store your beans. In store at Coffee DRs we have reusable metal tins with a one-way valve that lets you remove all the air each time you access your beans. But there are many others on the market.
The valve is important. Without a one-way valve, from the moment you unseal the container, the remaining air picket will continue to leach the flavour and aroma out of your coffee beans (listen to Luke chat about just that situation). Not ideal.
Cool, dark, stable location.
Store your beans in a cool, dark, stable location. This is often not as easy as we think, since during the day, especially in the summer, our homes can get very warm and the temperature can fluctuate rapidly. But there are steps we can take to help protect our precious beans.
Some of our tips are:
keep the beans away from the stove and oven areas.
if you have a ground level (or below ground level) floor, this is almost always the coolest place in the home.
hot air rises, so cupboards lower down are often better.
Freezing and refrigerating your beans.
We’re often asked whether freezing or refrigerating your beans will help them stay fresher for longer. The simple answer is no, this is not the best way to store coffee beans.
While they may stay ‘usable’ for longer, both refrigerators and freezers have all kinds of moist vapours, flavours and aromas that can transfer into your coffee (the reason we get ‘freezer burn’). Simply put, your coffee beans just won’t taste as nice once they’ve been kept in the fridge or freezer.
Takeaway
When deciding on the best way to store coffee beans at your home, the first step is just to take a walk around your house. Where is a place that is cool, dark, dry and not subjected to a lot of temperature flux? We prefer the bottom level of our kitchen pantry, though we have been known to keep beans in our bedroom closet, too.
Then find a great container for storing it – metal or ceramic, with a one-way valve for dispensing air around the beans.
Finally buy some great roasted beans (we might just have some you’ll love), enough to last you for a month or so. But plan on buying more at that point. Buying fresh and frequently is the best approach – and if you’re worried about running out, we have a subscription service that’ll ensure you never do!
Those three steps will guarantee you maintain the maximum flavour (and maximum enjoyment) of your roasted coffee beans!
Check out our shop to see what we’re roasting now and fill your coffee tin at home!