Brewing coffee at home can give us a quick caffeine fix whenever possible. It would help if you stored your coffee beans or grounds to brew at home.
So what’s the best way to store your coffee? Some methods keep our coffee flavorful and fresh, while others do the opposite. It all depends on the outside factors affecting your coffee while being stored.
How Do Outside Factors Affect Coffee Beans?
It’s important to preserve freshness to get the best flavor possible. There are 4 factors in the environment that can affect the freshness of coffee: direct light, oxygen, moisture, and heat.
Let’s explore the effects they have and how you can prevent it from affecting your coffee.
1. Direct Light
Direct light, especially sunlight, will cause your coffee to go stale because it speeds up the degradation of the beans. To avoid this, keep coffee in a dark place like a cabinet or in a dark-colored container.
2. Oxygen
Letting your coffee beans interact with oxygen will also cause your coffee to go stale. In fact, oxygen starts a process on coffee known as oxidation right after roasting occurs. Most packaging helps prevent this with a specially designed valve that lets carbon dioxide leave while keeping out oxygen. Air-tight containers with rubber seals are the best way to prevent this when you store your coffee.
3. Moisture
Keeping your coffee in a dry place will do wonders for freshness. Humidity will make your coffee beans go bad very quickly.
Ground coffee is even more affected by moisture. If there’s enough moisture, it will make the coffee clump up and stale.
4. Heat
Keeping your coffee cool is best, as heat will cause the beans to lose freshness. Since the beans are already roasted, no more heat is necessary until brewing.
Now let’s look at the best methods to use to store your coffee and the ones to avoid.
How to Store Coffee Beans: The Best Method
The best way to store coffee is by keeping it as whole beans in a dark, cool, dry place in an air-tight container.
In general, whole beans will give you the freshest brews. This is because ground coffee reacts with oxygen and loses flavor much more quickly. Grinding your coffee right before brewing is the best way to maintain flavor.
The airtight container prevents oxygen from spoiling the beans. The best airtight containers have rubber seals and one or more latches around the rim. A container with a pop-on or screw-on lid may not contain enough oxygen.
Where you store your coffee is equally as important as what you store it in. A dry, dark, cool place is best. Try putting it in a cabinet or pantry instead of on the counter to avoid light altogether. If you do need it on the counter, try a dark container.
Remember that even if you keep your coffee in the dark storage container, heat can still affect it, so you won’t want to store it over the stove or close to the oven.
How Long Does Coffee Last in the Fridge?
Putting coffee in the fridge to preserve freshness is fairly common. Unfortunately, it does nothing to keep coffee fresh and can make it go faster. The myth that the refrigerator keeps coffee fresh most likely stems from the advice to keep it out of the heat.
However, rapid temperature changes make condensation form outside the beans. This lets moisture build up on and inside the beans. Moisture will make your coffee go bad within days. Because of these factors, keeping your coffee at room temperature or slightly below is best. Plus, coffee stored in the fridge can absorb the odors and flavors of the food surrounding it.
When Does Coffee Start to Go Bad?
Now you know how to store your coffee, but how long will it stay fresh with the best method?
Unfortunately, having a cup of coffee at its freshness peak is challenging. Coffee starts to lose freshness right after roasting. The freshest your coffee will be right after roasting and for the first few days after. Check the roast date on your coffee bag and consider buying directly from a coffee roaster or even roasting your coffee beans at home. You can grab your coffee beans at our shop. We roast coffee beans daily. Coffee Beans PH Shop
