The Mad Roaster Coffee Beans

What is fresh coffee? How long does it take for coffee to get stale?

In order to mature, coffee must settle in a protective environment, much the same as red wine eases into its true and best character. And sadly, this is a fundamental flaw of many roasters and baristas. They lack the understanding that coffee that is too fresh is not ideal for use... Roasted coffee beans need time to settle somewhat, time to develop persistent crema, rounded body and complexity of flavor. In other words, they need time to get better.
[Barista Magazine]

As we learned in school, all chemical reactions give off by-products. When you roast coffee beans, they give off carbon dioxide (CO2).

Like red wine, coffee needs to mature into it's best flavour. However, that's a problem because air is the worst enemy of freshly roasted coffee beans. The coffee needs to mature, but if you let it mature - air will slowly destroy it.

coffee valve

Enter, the degas valve.

The degas valve was created to allow coffee to mature to it's best character, without being destroyed by air in the process.

Coffee is scooped hot from the roaster, into the bag so that CO2 can escape without exposing the coffee beans to air. It can then mature without being destroyed by air.

How long does it take coffee to mature?

Most large coffee companies do not deliver to market in less than eight weeks. They claim that their packaging extends the life and freshness of the roasted beans up to two years!

Award winning roasters say that the best time to extract (brew) coffee is 10-14 days after roasting.

Those are extremes. While we don't recommend 2-year-old coffee, you can store your coffee beans for 4-6 weeks with no problem, and if you're fanatic about freshness, use them within 2-3 weeks of roasting. Just keep them away from moisture, heat, light and air.

Note: The Barista Basics Academy teaches that coffee stored in an airtight bag with degas valve is good for 3 months.