Improving your home brew: Storage

Posted by Dale Capistrano on

We bag our coffee directly after roasting into nitrogen flushed, aluminum-lined bags, meaning that our coffee is technically optimal until about 90 days from the roast date. We think it shines right at about 20-30 days off roast! When you roast coffee, gases - including a lot of carbon dioxide - form inside the bean. Escaping gases can affect brewing by creating bubbles and air pockets disrupting contact between coffee grinds and water leading to uneven extraction. We recommend letting the coffee rest for at least 5 days after the roast date. 

For proper at-home coffee storage, we recommend keeping your coffee beans in the bags they came in. Our bags are resealable and feature a one way valve that, once sealed, allows you to push all the oxygen out of, without letting it back in. Reducing coffee's contact with oxygen prolongs its freshness, flavor and aroma. Keep the bag in a pantry or cabinet that is dry and not too warm.

The worst things for coffee are air, heat, moisture and light. If you do decide to transfer your coffee into another container, we recommend airtight opaque containers that are kept away from sunlight, moisture and heat. We do not recommend storing coffee in the fridge or freezer due to its porous nature and ability to absorb odors and aromas from its environment. Once the coffee is removed from the fridge, you also risk introducing moisture to the beans as they warm up to room temperature.

There are some great ideas out there for reducing coffee waste. Check out this article for Five Steps to Reduce Your Coffee Waste with Umeko Motoyoshi

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Improving your home brew: Grind Size

Posted by Dale Capistrano on

Grind size is crucial for successfully extracting coffee, and mastering the right grind size can be difficult. To start, we recommend using a Burr Grinder versus a Blade grinder for better, more uniform grinds. 

What's the difference? 

Blade grinders operate much like a blender or a spice grinder. Two small blades at the bottom of the grinder slice beans multiple times creating uneven pieces that can range from a fine powder to coarse grit that are all mixed together. This difference in particle size will lead to the coffee beans extracting at different rates. 

Burr grinds actually "grind" your coffee between two burrs which are either flat or conical in shape. One burr remains stationary while the other burr rotates. As you adjust your grind size the burrs move either closer or further apart to create a finer or coarser consistency. As the pieces are ground to the right size, they'll drop into a lower chamber.

We recommend grinding your coffee right before brewing. However, if you do not have access to a quality grinder at home, we'll be more than happy to grind your coffee to your preferred brewing method. Always use pre-ground coffee as soon as possible. Cold brew is a great brewing method to use a lot of ground coffee at once and it’s easy to store the cold brewed coffee in the fridge.

We're currently working on at-home grinder recommendations. Be on the lookout for a blog post coming soon! 

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Improving your home brew: Water Quality

Posted by Dale Capistrano on

Seeing as coffee is 98% water, starting with higher quality water will often be the best and cheapest way to upgrade your home coffee game. 

We experience some seriously HARD water in Las Vegas. At Vesta Coffee Roasters, we use a reverse osmosis filtration system that allows us to effectively control the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of our water consistently.. We track this on a daily basis to ensure the best tasting coffee for our customers.

At home water filtration can be costly. If you're looking for a solid way to step up your water game at home, we recommend using Third Wave Water. It's a great product to up the TDS of distilled water to ensure better tasting coffee. 

Here's a couple of links to improve your water for home brewing:

Simple recipe from Barista Hustle 

James Hoffman introduction of water for coffee

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