The Fresh Loaf

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Mold on my pitas

Crafty_Mom's picture
Crafty_Mom

Mold on my pitas

I've been making fresh bread for my family a few times a week for about a year now.  For sandwich bread, I leave one loaf out, and put two in the freezer.  Leftover pizza just gets put in the fridge.  I haven't had a problem.

 

Last night I tried my hand at some whole wheat pita bread, baked on a stone in the oven.  Came out fantastic.  I allowed them to cool for a few hours, then wrapped them up and put them in the freezer.  When I took a few out today, they were covered in mold!  They had molded in the freezer overnight!  How does that even happen, and how can I prevent it from happening in the future?

yy's picture
yy

What does this mold look like? Maybe it's just something that looks like mold - freezer burn? Could you post a photo?

Crafty_Mom's picture
Crafty_Mom

I've already tossed it, but it was definitely not freezer burn.  Dark green spots across the surface.

Dragonbones's picture
Dragonbones

It sounds like you accidentally splashed some pesto on them, or else your freezer is broken.

mimifix's picture
mimifix

I agree with the above posters, I highly doubt it was mold. Even if your freezer was broken a few hours of storage would not have had those results. Maybe the wrap had been used previously or something else contaminated the pitas. Yuck, you certainly don't want that to happen again. Put on your thinking cap! Any other ideas?

Crafty_Mom's picture
Crafty_Mom

Nope.  Nothing was spilled on them, and I used a fresh wrapper.  I've been doing some research and found that for whatever reason pitas go bad faster than other breads, but that fast?

Crafty_Mom's picture
Crafty_Mom

I guess I'll have to pull them out of the trash to photograph, although I REALLY don't want to.

Chuck's picture
Chuck

Could it be that a big part of the problem is more the freezer than the bread? Things to check:

  • it's only about 25F rather than 10F or below (put a refrigerator/reezer thermometer inside to check)
  • the door was opened an awful lot (are there kids in the house?)
  • the door wasn't tightly shut, maybe because the freezer is over-full
  • the cold airflow vents were blocked, maybe because the freezer is over-full
  • the pitas weren't spread out until they froze solid, but rather were bunched up even at the very beginning
  • there's so much frost the freezer is barely working, maybe because the defrost mechanism isn't doing its thing

Just one of these by itself couldn't have caused the problem. But it might have made the problem enough worse that you noticed it.

Crafty_Mom's picture
Crafty_Mom

"The pitas weren't spread out until they froze solid"

 

Wait.  We stacked them right out of the oven.  The freezer itself is fine, the door stays shut most of the time, defrost works fine, freezer is cold.  Maybe this is the issue?

uncle goosehead's picture
uncle goosehead

If they were pretty warm when frozen, and hadn't dried.  I find even in our dry climate that I must cool bread of all kinds on a wire rack with a towel over top.  They will become damp if bagged and put in fridge, and will have ice crystals if frozen.  I make pitas about monthly and haven't seen your specific problem.

Technically, if the mould was green and black, it was undoubtedly Rhizopus nigricans, or common bread mould.  (One of my daughters is a biologist, here for Easter and just spelled it all out for me.)  She says you can confirm by putting a bit of the mould on another piece of unmoulded bread and see if it grows, but I'm thinking all of us might take a pass on that!

Chuck's picture
Chuck

If they were stacked right out of the oven, then allowed to cool, maybe the top and bottom ones were indeed cool but the middle ones were still quite warm ???

jcking's picture
jcking

This may seem like out of left field, yet this is the time of year for high pollen counts.

Jim

Crafty_Mom's picture
Crafty_Mom

Well, they were all cool when I put them away, but I didn't check for dampness.  And they weren't black and green, but a dark green.

uncle goosehead's picture
uncle goosehead

They will start out green and if the mould progresses, it darkens towards black, if it was mould.