Storing Coffee Long Term

[230gr]

Storing Coffee Long Term

I have been looking into the best way to storage coffee long term and this is what I have found.
Ideally, coffee should be ground, brewed, and consumed quickly to obtain the best flavor. Coffee beans are at their peak within 24 to 72 hours after roasting and begin to quickly stale after that with most of the original flavor will have deteriorated within a week. Vacuum sealing and over wrapped with aluminum foil and placing them in the freezer (the refrigerator is NOT cold enough) will extend it to 4 or 6 weeks). Which mean that unless you roast & grind your own (or go to Starbucks?), we are not used to grommet tasting coffee so I will settle for drinkable.

How can we store drinkable coffee really long term as in years?
1. From all accounts, green, whole beans store the best. Green beans (whole beans) stay reasonably "fresh" for up to a year in a metal, glass or foil lined bag container if sealed from moisture and oxygen and for several years if frozen.
2. Vacuumed packed steel cans of roasted, ground coffee beans in 59oF storage may keep a year or two (though I suspect a little longer), with tolerable (but maybe not great) drinking quality. Roasting the bean brings the flavorful, but easily rancidzed oils, to the surface and grinding exposing more of the bean to air. The heavier oils of the beans that travel to the exterior of the bean also often congeal during frozen storage and do not remix well when brewed.
3. The best keepers are the Instant type and they come in two forms; spun dried powder and freeze dried. If instant is stored at 59oF, protected from light, in a metal, glass or foil lined bag container, sealed from moisture and oxygen it will keep at least 10 years.
4. IMO, the stored freeze dried was better tasting than the spun dried powder so that is what I stock Also from my own personal experience, Folgers Freeze Dried Coffee, stored in my basement storeroom for over 23 years in its glass jar. It was not only good; it was excellent in flavor.

How much should I store?
Here is what I found for freeze dried, spun dry might be different. I converted grams to grains so you can use your powder scale to calibrate your coffee dipper for rationing purposes. Since I don’t know anyone who really drinks only a 6 oz cup of coffee for an eye opener so plan accordingly.

Freeze Dried Coffee - Product Yield
Throw Weight Yield (6oz Cups)
Grams of Coffee per 6oz Cup Per Package Per Case
Regular Coffee
1.2 grams/18.5 grains 189 cups 2,268 cups
1.3 grams/20 grains 175 cups 2,100 cups
1.4 grams/21.6 grains 162 cups 1,944 cups
Stronger Coffee
1.5 grams/23 grains 151 cups 1,812 cups
1.6 grams/ 24.6 grains 142 cups 1,704 cups

Cost wise, I had hoped to find a cheaper source of coffee on the internet but did not; here is what I did found:
1. Folgers Coffee, freeze dried 8oz (Local Store) $4.61ea or 12/ $55.32

2. Superior Instant Coffee - Regular Freeze Dried - 12/8oz Case makes 1704 to 2724 six-ounce cups of coffee; each case $69.95
http://www.cw-usa.com/coffee-superio...ular-case.html

3. Nescafé 100% Colombian Vend Pack Coffee- 12 Bags/Case $11.14 Bag/$133.68 case
3.6 grams = 142 cups / Bag
3.7 1.7 grams = 134 cups / Bag
3.8 2.0 grams = 114 cups / Bag
http://www.discountcoffee.com/nescaf...mbian_vend.htm

[prfoley]

I thank 230 gr for the heads up - mood food is necessary for peaceful life in Oregon. Costco has large Folgers and I think that a couple of cases will go in my larders tomorrow - thanks prf

[Castlemom]

230gr,
I understand the need for freeze dried coffee for long term. I am hoping for success for slightly more picky palette.

In addition to freeze dried:

I am also buying nitrogen vacuumed bags of beans and sealing them in mylar.
Sealing in mylar/ o2packs/moisture packs, and into buckets for storage.....
fully expect a good result.

Also looking into freeze drying my own, "the way I like it coffee". Liquid nitrogen is not expensive yet, still figuring out cost efficacy ......stay tuned.

[230gr]

I hope that works well for you, Castlemom. From what I understand, the coffee bean oil is similar to brown rice oil, if so 3 to, possibly 5 years might be possible stored as you described in a cool place. Good luck.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

I am definitaly getting some freeze dried coffee. Like one 16 oz. mug of hot jo every day. Thanks for the info.

[Declan]

Well...Five year ago I bought 10 cans of Maxwell House, a Canadian coffee, I think. It comes in vacuum sealed cans of about one kilogram (2lb2.5oz). It's the kind that you use in a home coffee brewer.



Two weeks ago I decided to see how it held up and I opened a can. I drink coffee every day and I know a thing or two about what it should taste like. It was still in perfect condition, with an amazing aroma upon opening the vacuum seal and it tastes as good as I've ever had.

I imagine any similarly packed coffee (vacuum sealed in tins) will hold forever. I am not at the very top of the "coffee connoisseur" scale so I can live with not having freshly ground beans. This solves my problem and I am going to go buy at least 20 more cans.

I drink about three of those cans per year so I will be set for a long time.

I am believer in storing products that have been processed to the consuming stage as energy might be very expensive or unavailable. In the case of coffee beans you can use a hand operated grinder I guess so it's not really that big of an issue.

You can buy cans that are a half the size of that one and even a quarter the size. Now that will be worth its weight in gold for barter.

The big cans can be had for anywhere between $5 and $10 depending on the brand and the smaller ones for anywhere between $3 and $7.

[riverrat]

I use the Folgers singles in the tea bags.

[bug-out-betty]

Originally Posted by Declan

Well...Five year ago I bought 10 cans of Maxwell House, a Canadian coffee, I think. It comes in vacuum sealed cans of about one kilogram (2lb2.5oz). It's the kind that you use in a home coffee brewer.

THANK YOU! We have bought one can similar to that only cheap brand to put in our storage. Now that I know you have proven it to last....we will be stocking up on more. My B/F and I drink a 12 cup pot every day. You don't have to use a coffee pot to brew it though. We bought these things that you sit on top of a mug and put a filter in with a tbsp of grinds in and then pour boiling water over. Works great. And in a power outage situation that would work best.

[Herd Sniper]

Military coffee, some of it, goes back many, many years. We used to get packets of coffee in our C-rations that had been packed in the ration like 4 years before I was born and that coffee stayed good. At the time some of the C-rations I ate and drank coffee from were well over 20 years old. So coffee, if properly stored, will last for decades and not just a few years. I would bet that if you stored freeze dried and ground coffee still in its sealed glass jars and metal cans that if you placed them in a plastic bucket or metal box with a lid on it and out of the sunlight, you could probably still use it 50 years later. I probably wouldn't want to use it but if I had no other option I would at least try it.

[230gr]

Herd Sniper, we found a glass jar of Folgers Freeze Dried stored since 1980 in my basement that had escaped rotation. It was 23 or 24 years old and as taste good as the day it was made. I suspect that much of the Shelf Life data that I found is very conservative. I do believe that instant coffee, with the bean oil removed, will store better and longer than ground beans (if stored in steel, glass or mylar w/o oxygen) but, the way things are going, 5 years may be more than enough. The US is still steaming full steam ahead into the ice flow; get your lifeboat stocked now.

[Declan]

Originally Posted by bug-out-betty

You don't have to use a coffee pot to brew it though. We bought these things that you sit on top of a mug and put a filter in with a tbsp of grinds in and then pour boiling water over. Works great. And in a power outage situation that would work best.

Yes, I have one of those. I use it for camping and it does work great. I forgot to mention that my coffee tins are stored at just a little below room temperature in my basement. No freezing or refrigerating.

[kturnerga]

I've had the packets with the little coffee bag inside. They did taste noticeably stale given a year's storage. I need to stock up on freeze-dried/instant coffee as it seems to receive very high marks. I have a few sticks of Taster's Choice but like the idea of regular ground coffee. Chock Full O' Nuts advises its unopened cans last two years. Java snobs advise waiting no longer than a week when it comes to freshly-ground roasted beans from somewhere like Fivebucks.

How long would an airtight, unfrozen container of unground, roasted coffee beans last?

[East Coast Woods]

Don't know about the rest of you, but if you share my addiction, any type of coffee would be a God send during a crisis. One of my favorite methods is to use drip style ground coffee in a French press.

Preground coffee or coffee that you have ground yourself is simply placed in the bottom of the press container, then hot water is poured in and a plunger type handle inserted into the container. Let it sit for about 5 mins, and push the plunger down. Makes fantastic coffee.

For instant, the folgers singles in tea bags is rather good also.

[hank2222]

i do have the coffe in the long term supplies ..but iam more of a tea drinker and been looking for more long term way to store earlgrey tea bags for use in the morning..

[middlegeorgia]

I have a french press also for coffee and I store it as purchased...Vacuum sealed. I also remember being on active duty and we were always amazed that our food was 10 years old and still great! well maybe not great but definately palatable.
This is a good thought having been in a situation were we had very limited resources, I remember having no soap or just one flavor of crest toothpaste and how luxurious a scented bar of soap seemed when we finally got a chance to bath. Or how I would trade with some Foreign Legion guys we operated near for a different tasting toothpaste.
I know these are not life changers just thoughts from someone who has lived with very little for a period of time. I remember telling my family about this when I came home and they laughed not being able to comprehend. I reccomend a few small luxuries and some diversity in your kits in case you do have to live monotously...it's amazing how opening a fresh bar of soap that smells differently can brighten your day.

[oktx]

I found a small glass bottle of instant (freeze dried) coffee unopened in a little travel coffee maker that had belonged to my grandmother who passed away before I was born, making the coffee somewhere in the neighborhood of 40+ years conservatively. Out of curiosity I opened it and made a cup. It wasn't great, but in a pinch, I'd have consumed all of it without another thought.

Something to think about.

[arisinwind]

Originally Posted by Declan

Well...Five year ago I bought 10 cans of Maxwell House, a Canadian coffee, I think. It comes in vacuum sealed cans of about one kilogram (2lb2.5oz). It's the kind that you use in a home coffee brewer.

Two weeks ago I decided to see how it held up and I opened a can. I drink coffee every day and I know a thing or two about what it should taste like. It was still in perfect condition, with an amazing aroma upon opening the vacuum seal and it tastes as good as I've ever had.

We've done the same thing. We have coffee stored for almost 5 years in the original cans and they are perfect. Stored in a cool place they will last a long time.

[PistolPackingMama]

Costco just got in "Cafe Cappuccino." There are 30 packets in a box. Haven't tried it hot yet but it makes a great Mocha Frappe iced drink.

[ELBUFO]

Green beans sealed with an O2 absorber stay good for many years...
I used Uban When I wasn't roasting my own. I found that a metal can would stay fresh for at least 2 years...I did not notice an appreciable difference in a just bought Vs 2year can. I have no experience with plastic packaging.
IF YOUR "CAN" IS ONE OF THE NEW METALIZED CARDBOARD TYPE...THEY CANNOT TAKE HUMIDITY. I have had them loose their seal on me ( I live in a swamp). I found that wrapping them in a "Veggie Bag" and sealing the bag prevented this.
I am now so mad at canned coffee that we switched to totally home roasted green beans at about 2 1/4 the non-sale price of UBAN.

[stephpd]

Seeing how others have stored ground coffee for years without any noticeable difference I'd have to question the OP. Either that or us Americans are use to drinking crap. The shelf life's you gave for an open can of coffee didn't seem quite right to me. 1 week and it's stale just doesn't seem the norm for me and a 2# can. Seems it tastes just as good after a month of being opened.

But what do I know, I'm an American that drinks Maxwell House or Folgers automatic drip coffee.