# Resting



## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

Just thinking and wondering what others do, how soon before you would start trying your beans after the roast date ?

I know general consensus is 10-14 days after roast . But what is the very earliest you would even consider trying them , and does introducing air (opening the bag) help speed up the process.?or make no difference?


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## Kyle548 (Jan 24, 2013)

Thecatlinux said:


> Just thinking and wondering what others do, how soon before you would start trying your beans after the roast date ?
> 
> I know general consensus is 10-14 days after roast . But what is the very earliest you would even consider trying them , and does introducing air (opening the bag) help speed up the process.?or make no difference?


Earliest for acceptible results is probably 5 days - 7 is probably getting on for an optimal quality to un-rested balance.


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## Kyle548 (Jan 24, 2013)

Depends on the bean too - darker roasts will off-gas a lot faster than light roasts.


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

If you store te roasted beans in a proper bag with a one way valve, then you will be able to work out when they have stopped producing gas. A few years ago (perhaps DaveC can expand) a lot of us thought the best way was to buy seal the beans in vacuum seal bags and then use a hand held machine to drain the air out. As the beans de-gassed, each day you drew the gas out until eventually no gas was produced, you then vacuum sealed the beans and the would keep for a canny while. That method seems to have fallen from grace nowadays!


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## Chris_on_caffeine (Jul 21, 2012)

Depends how desperate you are for coffee. If you have nothing else to use then you're pretty much screwed anyway, so just start using them.

I don't think the 'de-gassing' aspect is really that important, the 'gas' doesn't cause any harm to the beans.

For me, resting is more about allowing the flavours within then beans to develop over time. Exposing beans to air is definitely bad though, avoid opening the bag if you can.


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Agree for making brewed coffee as the CO2 will just froth away in the slurry. However, for espresso, it's a different matter as the presence of excess CO2 will cause back pressure during extraction and lead to various unwanted outcomes such as under-extraction.


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

Smokeybarn, are you saying that a steak, hung for 15 days to mature, tastes no different to one sliced from a 10'minute old carcass?


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## Going banana's (Apr 8, 2014)

Kyle548 said:


> Depends on the bean too - darker roasts will off-gas a lot faster than light roasts.


yep, resting period is different for every bean and roast level, ive had some the day after the roast and theyve been fine, not optimal but still ok.

In my experience, dark roasts seem to peak and decline faster than light then develop off-flavours if theyre oily.

generally ive settled on at least 3 days for dark (full city/full city+) with 5-10 being optimal, 5 days minimum for light (city/city+) with 7-10 being optimal and often i notice a decline at two weeks (never tested much longer as beans get used up too quickly).

ive read some people leave the beans ground for a few hours to speed it up, ive tried it but id say it makes the flavours flatter rather than more mature and rounded as in the properly aged bean.


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## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

Thanks all of you, great insight as per usual. I Have a few beans at the moment but I am hitting it hard, must make a mental note to myself to think a couple of weeks ahead.


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## Chris_on_caffeine (Jul 21, 2012)

dfk41 said:


> Smokeybarn, are you saying that a steak, hung for 15 days to mature, tastes no different to one sliced from a 10'minute old carcass?


No, completely the opposite. When I say 'degassing is not that important', I literally mean the gases coming out of the beans. For espresso yeah sure it's gonna play havoc if not degassed. But what I'm saying is, the flavour benefits that are gained from allowing beans to rest are not related to gasses being released (imo).

For an example, if you make a brewed cup of coffee using beans that have come straight out of the roaster, you stir the bloom, release all the gases etc, it still tastes like crap.


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