Even if coffee is a part of your morning routine, it may not always be your go-to beverage. This means you might occasionally have unused coffee beyond the freshness date. So, what do you do with the old coffee beans you have lying around the house? Throwing them away is always an option, although you might not like the waste you are creating, particularly if they were speciality coffee beans. 

Thankfully, those beans do not have to end up in the rubbish.

Logic Vending has come up with a few creative – and sometimes even delicious – ways to make the most of out-of-date coffee beans.

How to Tell if You Have Out-of-Date Coffee Beans

Now, of course, there is no need to figure out what to do with coffee beans that are still fine – just brew them up and enjoy a drink. But perhaps you are not sure if your beans are old just yet. To determine this, just look for these signs that our beans have reached the end of their shelf life.

Sign 1 – The Taste Is Not There Anymore

The flavour profile you get with your speciality beans is one of the main reasons you buy them. Take Logic Vending’s Kokebi Coffee Beans as an example. There is a freshness to the profile and a flavour you lose when the beans go beyond their best.

You do not get that striking flavour when your beans are outdated. There is no vibrant floral profile or that shot of freshness you expect from a truly great coffee. Rather, the taste can best be described as… bland. Uninspired, perhaps. If you sense your coffee is merely palatable without any of the flavour you expected, you are probably brewing coffee with beans that are at least a few weeks past their best.

Sign 2 – The Roast Date Tell You So

Sometimes, you do not need to run a flavour test to tell if your coffee beans have seen better days. The information is on the packaging in the form of a “roast by” date. Think of this as the same as the “use by” date you see on other foodstuffs. The coffee is still fine to drink, but it is losing all of the qualities that would make you want to drink it in the first place.

So, look for a “roast by” date on your coffee’s packaging. You will usually find it on the bottom of the packaging or somewhere near (or on) the label.

What to Do With Coffee Beans That Are Past Their Best

We come to the most important question you need to answer when you discover your beans are past their best:

Can you reuse coffee grounds?

You can, and Logic Vending has some great ideas for what you can do with your out-of-date coffee beans.

Idea 1 – Make Coffee Ice Cubes

Coffee ice cubes give you a nice hint of coffee flavour when you use them in other drinks or add them to another coffee to enhance that coffee’s profile. They take minimal effort to make. Just brew your coffee as you usually would and pour it into an ice cube tray. Pop that tray into your freezer for a few hours and have your cubes.

The best thing about coffee ice cubes is that you do not need fresh coffee to get what you need from them. Your cubes provide a hint of flavour rather than the full profile, and do not water down your coffee as traditional ice cubes would. That makes coffee ice cubes perfect for any cold drink you feel could use a hint of coffee.

Idea 2 – Create a Coffee-Based Cold Brew Concentrate

You can apply the same line of thinking to create a coffee concentrate as you would ice cubes in that you do not need the freshest coffee in the world to make it. Never heard of a concentrate? You create it by steeping your roasted coffee beans in cold or room-temperature water for a few hours. Water tinged with some coffee flavour is the result, and the concentrate then delivers a smooth hit of coffee to other cold drinks, such as milk or even bog-standard water.

The ratio is all-important here. Aim for about 25 grams of old coffee beans per 240mm—or a single cup—of water. Any less, and you’ll get vaguely coffee-flavoured water rather than a concentrate you can use to perk up other cold brews.

Idea 3 – Make Your Own Coffee Blend

You are putting on your barista’s hat with this method as you experiment with blending the old with the new. Try taking your out-of-date coffee beans and mixing them with some fresh beans to see what kind of unique-to-you flavour profiles you can create. Or, blend the old with the old – there will still be hints of the flavours both types of older beans held, and a combination of two types may be enough to bring them out.

Our recommendation here is to stick with old beans of different single-origin coffees. For instance, you could try mixing Logic Vending’s Kokebi Coffee Intenso Dark Roast with its Super Crema Medium Roast from the same brand. If all goes well, you will combine the dark chocolatey flavour profile of Intenso with the sweet cedar wood of Super Crema to get a very interesting coffee.

It could also go wrong, and you brew a terrible batch, but that is the fun of experimenting. At least you will know for the future.

Idea 4 – Train Your Brewing Until You Are a Master

This next idea helps you figure out what to do with used coffee beans as much as old ones – use them to carry out practice runs on your brewing technique on your commercial coffee machine. For instance, your pour-over technique may need some work. You have not quite managed to get your hot water pouring speed right yet, but your old beans can serve as the perfect means of practising. Even if you get it wrong, it will not matter – these are out-of-date coffee beans you would not drink anyway.

The same goes for any new technique you wish to introduce into your coffee-making repertoire. Have you picked up a new brewing tool? A few practice runs with old beans is a great way to get the hang of it. You are mixing experimentation with education here to ensure you will get the most out of your fresh beans in the future.

Idea 5 – Offset Foul Odours

Both old and used coffee beans contain nitrogen, a chemical element that proves extremely useful when dealing with foul odours in a room. When that element combines with the carbon naturally in the air, you get an all-natural odour-eater that absorbs the smells you do not want.

For instance, let us assume you left some food in the fridge for a little longer than you intended, a common occurrence near any office coffee machine! It started to rot, and you now have that after-tinge of spoiled food hitting your nostrils whenever you open the fridge door. A handful of old or used coffee grounds thrown into a bowl and placed in the fridge for a day or two is usually enough to eliminate the foul smell.

Idea 6 – Create Delightful Desserts

Just as you can use older wine to make desserts and other recipes, you can also use out-of-date coffee beans. For those who love the sweeter side of mealtimes, there are plenty of ideas for what to do with coffee beans. Create chocolate-covered espresso beans, or use your old beans to craft a gorgeous tiramisu. Coffee cake, ice cream, or any chocolate dessert can benefit from a coffee kick.

The age of the bean does not matter here as much as using it properly within the confines of your recipe. However, we would not recommend reusing old coffee grounds for desserts—stick with older beans rather than ones that have already been ground and through the wringer.

How to Reduce Coffee Bean Waste

While all of these ideas are great for revealing what to do with old coffee beans, you would naturally prefer to use your beans for their intended purpose. So, you have to avoid waste, with these final tips help you do just that.

  • Only buy as much coffee as you believe you need. We know this is a tough one when Logic Vending offers so many great choices, but moderation is your friend when it comes to waste.
  • Store your coffee beans properly, which means keeping them away from sunlight and in cool conditions where they are sealed from oxygen ingress.
  • Grind small amounts at a time rather than batching your coffee creation. Grinding releases the aromatic compounds you want to taste in your coffee, but therein lies the point—those compounds get released. That means they disappear over time if you grind large batches.