chiroptera Senior Member Joined: 27 Nov 2009 Posts: 10 Location: Los Angeles Expertise: I love coffee
Drip: Aeropress, Melitta CM 6/4
Posted Mon Jun 11, 2012, 2:48pm Subject: Storing measured doses
I want to store small one cup doses of coffee to reduce the time I spend making coffee in the morning. I grind everything at the store, and when I come home I want to separate into doses for the whole bag (1/4 to 1 lbs.) Are there any good ways to store these small amounts?
Get a precision scale. Take the pre-ground coffee and measure out into 16 g samples and place each in a small ziploc baggie. Then take them all and throw them in the garbage. Joking aside, people on this forum believe that coffee must be ground just prior to use. Preground is not ok. Saving time in the morning is a great idea, but is always trumped by basic ideologies like fresh ground coffee. That being said, I open a bag of whole bean (1 or 5lb bag) and separate into small 1/4 - 1/2 lb ziploc baggies, suck out the air and seal, then place back into original bag and place in freezer. I thaw 1 bag at a time and bring out a new bag when the other is almost done, to ensure constant supply of fresh whole beans. You could do the same with ground if you like, but do yourself a favor and buy a burr grinder.
Devin, Great discription of storing preground micro doses!
Honestly though if the Kai values ease of use over great coffee that much (we all have our priorities) he would be a good candidate for a single serve machine that uses K cups. The quality will be higher than the storage plan and the ease of use will be there in spades.
There is no shame with those machines when that is your top value.
In real life, my name is Wayne P.
Feed the newbs, starve the trolls and above all enjoy what you drink!
law of 15's: 15 months from picking 15 days from roasting 15 minutes from grinding
That means not buying supermarket coffee. Need an artisan roaster (many listed on this site under recommended roasters). And grind with a burr grinder. I see you use the aeropress. A hario mini hand mill is what I pair mine with at work (but this will increase your prep time, not decrease it). But like I tell everyone that gives me the stare down when they see me grinding, is that the extra time in prep is actually part of the enjoyment of this craft. Even if the coffee tasted the same, I would swear it tasted better because of the sweat and tears put into the preparation. And it does taste better. Much better. Or get an electric version like baratza encore. Orphan espresso has many great hand grinder options. But again, this is a great tangent from your original attempt to make life easier. Like most things in life, better is never easier. And take some time to smell the roses.....or coffee.
Try it and let us know. I've done it, and was surprised to find that pre-ground coffee lasts longer than an hour (medium-fine grind, unsealed). Much longer, in fact.
Week long in a bag or sealed container, and for me it's pretty obvious. But the level of flavor drops to office-pot swill, not distinctly stale.
I think someone here did their own investigation and found they couldn't tell the difference between well-stored preground coffee and freshly ground coffee until 3ish days. Can't find the thread, tho.
YMMV.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
I've tried pre-ground coffee a few times when I didn't want to drag a grinder along to somewhere that I was making coffee with mixed results.
The problem was not in staling, at least not for coffee that I planned to use that day, but more of knowing in advance how much coffee I'm really going to use. I tried a little flip top lid jar that would hold enough ground coffee for an espresso shot, but I seem to remember having trouble getting all the fine coffee grounds out of the container. I've also tried ziplocks for brewed coffee and that seemed to work ok, but if I didn't have a cup of coffee then I'd wasted the ground espresso or coffee.
Nowadays I usually just grind at work with a hand-grinder but I'll still sometimes grind in advance when I'm going over to my in-law's house and brewing coffee.
I think someone here did their own investigation and found they couldn't tell the difference between well-stored preground coffee and freshly ground coffee until 3ish days...
^^^ This has been my experience, too. If you start with fresh coffee and grind directly into a Ball jar or similar, sealing it up well, you'll be good to go for at least a day. I don't pre-grind habitually, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if the need arose and my travel grinder were unavailable for some reason.
law of 15's: 15 months from picking 15 days from roasting 15 minutes from grinding
That means not buying supermarket coffee. Need an artisan roaster (many listed on this site under recommended roasters). And grind with a burr grinder. I see you use the aeropress. A hario mini hand mill is what I pair mine with at work (but this will increase your prep time, not decrease it). But like I tell everyone that gives me the stare down when they see me grinding, is that the extra time in prep is actually part of the enjoyment of this craft. Even if the coffee tasted the same, I would swear it tasted better because of the sweat and tears put into the preparation. And it does taste better. Much better. Or get an electric version like baratza encore. Orphan espresso has many great hand grinder options. But again, this is a great tangent from your original attempt to make life easier. Like most things in life, better is never easier. And take some time to smell the roses.....or coffee.
Getting an electric grinder is something I'm working on. I'm a busy person, and I like to save time.
Anyway, I haven't found a way practice your law of 15's without freezing the coffee. The roasters I've found don't sell in amounts less than 1 pound. That's around 2 months of coffee for me. My options are 1) I buy small amounts from a market every week or two; 2) I buy a pound from a roaster and use it for month; 3) I buy a pound from a roaster and discard what I don't use in 2 weeks.
What I've done in the past is buy whole beans from a roaster and freeze in 4 evenly divided bags. I don't like the taste around month 2.
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