dorkroast Senior Member Joined: 3 Oct 2012 Posts: 78 Location: CA Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Gaggia Classic Grinder: Mazzer Mini Roaster: Popcorn Pumper
Posted Thu Nov 8, 2012, 8:45pm Subject: "Sell By Dates" on packaged coffee.
I've become much more interested in roasting dates lately, trying to make sure the coffee I'm drinking is not displaying off flavors simply because the beans are too old.
So it sparked my interest in when the bags of Kirkland beans are my local Costco were roasted (Costcos in my area no longer roast beans in-store). The two pound bags of beans state they are roasted by Starbucks.
I wasn't able to find a roasting date, but what I found interesting was that the "sell by" dates on the bag were a year away.
I've consumed some old beans, but I can't imagine purposely consuming year-old roasted beans. The other thing I'm curious about now is how long ago the beans were actually picked and how long they sat in bags before they were roasted.
DavecUK Senior Member Joined: 21 Sep 2005 Posts: 916 Location: UK Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Thu Nov 8, 2012, 8:55pm Subject: Re: "Sell By Dates" on packaged coffee.
The packed date is also another date you might see, again useless, because the coffee can have been roasted a long time before later being repackaged (e.g. months). I think all coffee should have a "proper" roast date on it, then let the consumer decide how old they want it to be. Unfortunately too many roasters do not put a roasted on date on coffee. I also agree with you, year old coffee would not be something I would want to consume, in fact I don't want to consume 6 week old coffee as I feel that's about the limit for me personally, now matter how it's packaged for sale.
Posted Fri Nov 9, 2012, 5:30am Subject: Re: "Sell By Dates" on packaged coffee.
You'll get a lot of "useless" comments about sell-by dates here on the sites.
Here's what I found out (applicable to whole bean only):
Eight o Clock and Dunkin Donuts - both packaged within 3 hours of roasting. They put a sell-by date of 1 year later than the roast date. Eight o Clock is a large roaster in the Eastern US, Dunkin Donuts' parent company is Smuckers, IIRC.
Starbucks bought in a Starbucks outlet: packaged within 2 hours of roasting. They put 34 weeks later as the sell by date.
Caribou Coffee: in store purchased it looks like 9 months, but have not been able to verify. They have been very "that's protected information".
Now - if you buy Starbucks or Caribou in store, the sell-by is different. They set grocery-store supply at 1 year past roasting and packaging.
Both chains have a process that supplies a fresher and shorter supply chain to brewed coffee and espresso in larger batches to be used for making batch and retail coffee and espresso in store.
Kirkland: according to people I've been able to glean info from (nobody is willing to give me a straight answer) they may actually date their stuff at 15 months past roasting. Some of their stuff is indeed roasted by Starbucks roasting facilities, but supplied as a grocery chain.
It typically takes 2-4 weeks to get from roasting date to warehouse to inventory-pull to the shelf. Best I've found on Eight o clock is 3 weeks post roast on the shelf. Starbucks about 3-4 weeks on new introductions (indivisible blend, anniversary blend, thanksgiving blend, when they first intro'd their blonde roast).
Keep in mind, "not fresh" is NOT THE SAME THING as "stale". Stale coffee is undrinkable.
Coffee flavor peaks (for brewed coffee) somewhere between 24 and 96 hours after roasting. After that, the flavor mellows and converts, stabilizes for a while, then begins to rapidly stale as nasty smelling and tasting compounds are generated from oxidation.
It takes a surprisingly small amount of oxygen exposure to accelerate staling. The way whole bean coffee is packaged (properly functioning 1-way valve in a gas impermeable bag), the natural off-gassing will purge the oxygen content to below 1%. If kept below 75°F, this product is shelf stable ("viable", not "fresh", but still VERY drinkable) for a long time. This can be as long as 4 months, where the difference between 3 weeks post roast and 4 months post roast is indistinguishable.
I'm not saying this is the same thing as peak flavor coffee - but properly brewed can be very enjoyable. It's also a very good way to have a consistent benchmark.
Once exposed to air, though, there is little that can be done except for dry storage and low temperature with vacuum sealing or inert purging.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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
Posted Fri Nov 9, 2012, 5:31am Subject: Re: "Sell By Dates" on packaged coffee.
So, a Kirkland with a sell-by date of 1 year from your purchase date was probably roasted about 3 months ago.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- 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
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