If your coffee isn’t coming out quite as you’d like it, you might want to try sticking the beans in the freezer. According to a study from the University of Bath and coffee shop Colonna & Smalls, chilling roasted coffee beans before grinding them will result in a better tasting brew The findings come just before the World Barista Championships in Dublin later this month, and the researchers say this new understanding has major implications for the industry. In the study, they tested the effects of grinding coffee beans at varying temperatures, from room temperature to roughly -320° F. ‘What you’re looking for is a grind that has the smallest difference between the smallest and largest particle,’ said Dr Christopher Hendon, then a chemistry PhD student at the University of Bath, who now works at MIT. ‘If you have small grinds you can push flavour extraction upwards.’ As the beans become colder, the researchers found the subsequent grinds will allow for greater extraction of flavour compounds. This means you can produce more coffee from the same amount of beans, or you can brew it for less time, Hendon explained. ‘It will alter the taste, because subtle changes in particle size distributions make a huge difference in rate of extraction,' Hendon said. 'I wouldn’t be surprised if people struggled to achieve balanced extractions. ‘It could have a major impact for the industry.  'People are trying to produce a very high quality drink with really quite powerful tools and are willing to try new things.’ These findings could make for better tasting coffee and more efficient brewing, explained Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, co-owner of Colonna & Smalls. As the beans become colder, the researchers found the subsequent grinds will allow for optimized flavour extraction. This means you can produce more coffee from the same amount of beans, or you can brew it for less time ‘Grinding coffee may seem quite straightforward – break coffee up into a lot of tiny bits so you and dissolve it in water. But like the whole world of coffee the subtleties of the process have a huge impact on the flavour and quality of the cup of coffee,’ Colonna-Dashwood said. With a constant, cooler temperature, particles will be more uniform once ground, and may even provide more surface area to make better use of the coffee. ‘All of this will impact on how we prepare coffee in the industry,’ Colonna-Dashwood said. ‘I bet we will see the impact of this paper in coffee competitions around the globe, but also in the research and development of new grinding technology for the market place.’ Source: dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3641517/Scientists-say-key-perfect-cup-coffee-chill-beans.html#ixzz4C78rpFyj