Mold on roasted beans?

[CoffeeLoverJC]

Does mold grow on roaster coffee beans?

I have some roasted beans (admittedly a couple years old) that I started seeing some fuzzy stuff on the beans. Is it possible that this is mold? I thought coffee is too acidic and the bean too hard for mold to grow on.

 

[DirtyDave]

Mold and moisture, they go together.
Mold will grow on green coffee beans (and render them useless).
The real issue is WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH 2 YEAR OLD BEANS?
Coffee does not improve with age.
If you haven't taken EXTRAORDINARY steps to preserve the beans (high level vacuum and/or deep freezing), 6 months is about the max you can expect.
Go buy some freshly roasted coffee.

 

[CoffeeLoverJC]

First . . . Thank you, DirtyDave, for your reply.

I've just realized . . . Oops, I made a typo in my questioning post. I meant to type: Does mold grow on roasted coffee beans?

I did realize that green coffee beans can mold because of the moisture in them, yet how about the roasted ones, especially the dark roast like espresso roast? My roasted beans were stored in vacuum and dry. I thought that the beans' surface would be too hard and too dry for anything to grow on it. Could the white fuzzy stuff be mold? Or could it be something else--some natural occurrence of the oil on the roasted bean converting to some other substance (like the plume on an aged cigar)?

 

[DirtyDave]

Coffee beans that have been "vacuum" packaged are almost always a compromised solution.
Most vacuum/inert gas purge machines do a very poor job.
Commercially available one way valves would be instantly destroyed by a vacuum level sufficient to preserve the flavor of the beans long term.
So, what you have in a bag that was sealed 2 years ago, is completely oxidized coffee beans.
If the beans were roasted/damaged to the point of damaging the cellular wall (beans oiled up) then, after all that time and exposure to atmosphere, surface growths are to be expected.
BUY FRESH COFFEE.

 

[CoffeeLoverJC]

Okay, thanks, DirtyDave, for your insights.