Zach And Dani's Coffee roaster Instructional Manual - page 10
Storing and Handling Coffee after Roasting
Since the primary reason for roasting at home is to experience the perfume of
truly fresh coffee, you obviously should store and handle your roasted coffee with
care. Coffee in its unroasted state keeps very well, but the moment it is roasted it
begins a rapid, relentless journey from flavorful to flavorless.
Coffee tastes best a few hours to a day out of the roaster. Two days after
roasting, a good part of the aroma has fallen prey to the staling effect of oxygen; a
week later the taste is also compromised; in two weeks the aroma has virtually
vanished and the taste has lost its complexity and authority.
Here are some steps to take to preserve and maximize the fragrance of your
home-roasted coffee:
• Roast small quantities of coffee often.
• Store coffee in a sealed jar or canister in a cool, dry place, away from direct
sunlight. After allowing the coffee to rest for a day uncovered, place in a sealed
jar or canister. Caution: Do not fill a tight-sealing canister or jar more than
about halfway with just-roasted coffee that has not been rested for a day or so.
The gas escaping from absolutely fresh coffee can exert considerable pressure
on the walls and lid of a filled and tightly sealed container.
• Grind your coffee immediately before brewing. The purpose of grinding coffee
is to break open the bean and make the flavor oils available to hot water and
thus to our palates. Unfortunately, breaking open the bean also makes the
flavor oils available to oxygen and staling. Grinding is a devastating procedure
that only should be undertaken a few moments before you brew.
• Resist the refrigerator reflex. Don’t store coffee in refrigerators; they’re damp
inside and dampness compromises aroma and flavor.
• Freeze coffee only in an emergency, when you have an oversupply of already
roasted coffee that you can’t consume within a week. Put the beans in a sound
zip lock freezer bag and squeeze as much air as possible out of the bag before
sealing. Remove only as many beans as you intend to consume for the day and
immediately reseal the bag and return it to the freezer.
• Drink your coffee immediately after brewing. It does little good to roast, then
grind and brew superbly fresh coffee if you let it sit on a hot plate for ten
minutes while the aromatics evaporate. If you must keep brewed coffee
around before you drink it hold it in a pre-heated insulated carafe, which will
preserve the taste if not the aroma.
All of these rules and instructions can be taken either as a symptom of a
pointless obsessiveness or, if you love coffee, as a way of being, and taking time to
savor a small but exquisite space in the onrush of life.
Zach & Dani’s™ Instructional Guide and Roasting Journal
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How to set up your own Coffee Cellar
For food romantics “coffee cellar” has a fine ring to it. It resonates with the same
combined pleasure of connoisseurship and security that motivates people to keep
dusty wine bottles piled deep in the hearts of their houses. Correct storage for
unroasted coffee is cool but not cold, dark, dry, and, above all, well ventilated.
Rather than cellar, think pantry: The storage cupboards in the kitchens of older
houses that allow air to circulate among the shelves represent an ideal
environment in which to store green coffee.
• Good, high grown unroasted coffees (Central America, Colombia, East Africa)
kept in such conditions will change very little over the years. For the first year
or so they will round and sweeten in flavor; after that they become fuller in
body but gradually lose brightness and acidity.
• Lower grown, gentler coffees may change in flavor rather quickly. Brazil
Santos, for example, will begin to lose acidity as soon as six months or a year
after harvest.
• Coffees that arrive dark green or brown in color and high in moisture
(particular Sumatras and Sulawesis) usually develop mildewed or musty notes
when stored for any length of time. For some, this heavy, malty flavor is
attractive; others may not like it.
Setting Up a Coffee Cellar
What kind of container should you use to store your unroasted coffee?
• Plastic bags are fine for short-term storage, but if you plan to hold unroasted
coffee for more than a month or two, you should transfer it to something
porous: cloth is doubtless best, but corrugated cardboard boxes probably will
work as well.
Note: Zach & Dani’s plastic bags are specially designed to allow the unroasted beans
to breathe. You can leave your Zach & Dani’s unroasted coffee beans in their plastic
bags for years.
• Burlap bags of the kind used to construct temporary levees during periods of
flood are ideal for storing coffee at home. They are sold empty, they are a
convenient size (not trivially small yet still luggable when full), and they
include sewn-in drawstring closures. You can find them in obscure industrial
parts of cities; look in the Yellow Pages under “Bags.” Buy the cloth bags, not
the plastic.
Unroasted coffee is a living entity; it needs to breathe. Elevate the boxes or bags
on a palette or similar arrangement that allows air to circulate beneath them.
Every few months shift the containers around. Turn them over, and if they are in a
pile shift the bottom containers toward the top of the pile and bring the top ones
down, much as you would rotate tires on a car.
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Zach & Dani’s™ Instructional Guide and Roasting Journal