how long after I grind coffee beans does it take to get stale

[smackababy]

Have Penn and Teller done a "Bullshit" episode on coffee snobs? I think it'd be funny to serve people a bunch of different "styles" of coffee in a tasting, only to reveal it's all Folgers and see if anybody noticed.

I can't remember if it was P&T, but I remember a test where somebody added red food coloring to white wine and served it as red. All the wine lovers were giving it typical red wine descriptions. It was funny

I don't think it was P&T, but I saw something where they did that kind of thing to audiophiles. They used expensive shielded cables, cheap o cables, and a copper coat hanger. All from the same source and they couldn't tell the difference.

 

[gorcorps]

I don't think it was P&T, but I saw something where they did that kind of thing to audiophiles. They used expensive shielded cables, cheap o cables, and a copper coat hanger. All from the same source and they couldn't tell the difference.

I've done that with myself and my buddies to figure out what ripping quality is transparent with my equipment(foobar2000 has a double blind test feature). None of us could tell the difference if we ripped with LAME -V2 mp3s vs. FLAC. There was a noticeable difference to most of us once we got to -V3 depending on music type.

Everybody's hearing loss is different and it could change with style of music too, but it was interesting anyway.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I grind them every night and set the timer so I can stagger downstairs in the morning and drink my happy juice.

I grind in the AM after boiling the water for my Hario brewing system.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I grind in the AM after boiling the water for my Hario brewing system.

If I tried that in a non-caffeinated state I would probably set the house on fire.

 

[Ksyder]

Never grind until ready, and only grind what you will brew basically right then.

Fresh roasted beans at first get a slight bit of air. Well, a lot of air while they cool to room temp, then a little bit of air (like a mason jar with holes in the seal). After roughly 48 hours of degassing, it's usually good to start sealing it up. If you have any storage with one-way valves, permanently storing in this is best - but if not, occasionally opening a sealed mason jar will be enough to let air out, but if that's the only option, the first two or three days should definitely not be fully sealed.

After roasting (not factoring in degassing time), the whole beans are usually good for between 7-14 days (peak). They can be good to consume for much longer, don't forget that. You get into pre-ground, two-pound tub territory if you start waiting too long though, which, imho, removes the entire point of doing it yourself.

You really don't want to let grounds sit, I wouldn't even recommend two hours - I recommend grind and brew: only grind what you will brew right then and there, seal the rest. Excess grounds? Measure correctly to minimize how much you throw away.


That said - there really is not one size fits all answer. Well, for ground coffee, I'd argue it always fits: don't let grounds sit exposed.
For roast beans (and green/unroasted beans - sealed properly I've heard they can last awhile, longer than 2 months at least), peak flavor could be a few days after roast date, a week after roast date, or perhaps 10-12 days after roast date. This also depends on the desired flavor, but more than anything, on the individual beans, the roast level, and of course environment/storage.

If you buy a fresh roast, or roast yourself, I'd sample with fresh grinds and take notes of each day. You might find your preferred flavor from that roast peaks around a certain time.

I agree with this info entirely (although I do sometimes grind the coffee the night before and put it in the freezer so I'm not disturbing anyone with the grinder at 4 am)


There is a difference between commodity grade coffee and specialty grade coffee. On a 1-100 scale it must rate at least 80 to be considered specialty coffee. Check out coffeereview.com. I don't know he uses the same scale but he does review supermarket coffee and usually it rates from terrible to decent(rarely).

Even before I knew anything about coffee I tried them all in the supermarket and nothing was any good black. When you brew an espresso or a pour-over using specialty coffee standards in terms of freshness, water temp. etc. you will taste coffee flavors you have never experienced. I find this is true in the lighter roasts in particular, which when done well, you can really taste the difference in coffees between origins such as ethiopia or guatemala for example.

one other thing is that george howell who is kind of the godfather of specialty coffee (sold his company to starubucks, invented the frappucino, now has terroir coffee) has been deep freezing green coffee in vacuum sealed bags and his testing has showed little to no degradation in flavor after 2 years IIRC ( he's been doing this to preserve the best coffee lots from certain seasons)