Buying Coffee Beans in Bulk - The Best Way to Store Coffee Beans While Keeping them Fresh and Flavorful

Whether you own, or work for a coffee shop, or you are just an at home coffee enthusiast, buying coffee beans in bulk is a great way to save money, plus you know what they say “Everything in moderation"… Except coffee!

However, your bulk purchase can quickly become a nightmare, because if you don’t store any excess coffee beans properly, they can quickly lose their flavor and go stale before you have the chance to use them.

There are many different ways that you can store coffee beans to preserve their flavor and aroma, but some important things to keep in mind are to decrease air movement, limit temperature fluctuations, and avoid exposure to light. Here are the top ways that we recommend you store your bulk coffee:

Vacuum Seal & Freeze

Vacuum sealing your coffee beans is an excellent way to store your beans but it's also important to know that whole coffee beans release CO2 gas when they are packaged. If you vacuum seal coffee and store it in your pantry, the released gasses will cause the bag to fill up with gas, trapping it inside the vacuum bag, and therefore no longer being tightly vacuumed.

In order to slow down or stop your coffee beans from outgassing when vacuum sealing at home, it is critical to store them in the freezer. Storing your vacuum sealed coffee beans in the freezer will keep moisture away from the coffee, decrease air movement, limit temperature fluctuations, avoid the dreaded exposure to light, and keep your coffee from losing its vacuum seal.

Use Mylar Bags with a Chamber Vacuum Sealer to Decrease any Exposure to Light

If you want to decrease the coffee beans exposure to light even more so, then we recommend using Mylar bags instead of regular vacuum sealer bags. Mylar bags are typically thicker, and are not transparent like traditional vacuum sealer bags. However, most Mylar bags are smooth so you can’t use suction vacuum sealers to vacuum the air out of them, but you can use a Chamber Vacuum sealer to vacuum the air out of Mylar type bags before heat sealing them.

Lastly, when it's time to pull out one of your bags for grinding and brewing, make sure to completely thaw the coffee beans prior to opening the vacuum sealed bag.

Use Vacuum Canisters

If you want to preserve the flavor of your coffee, but still have a way to keep it on hand, without having to dig it out of the freezer, and re-vacuum seal it every time you need it, then we recommend using a vacuum sealer canister! Vacuum Canisters are a great way to store dry goods in an airtight container. Simply use your vacuum sealer and accessory hose to vacuum all of the air out of the container, and it will be sealed tight until the next time you open it.