Rope Disease
Hi everyone,
I have been baking bread by hand in the last 3 months or so. Everything was going well until I decided to store my bread in plastic bags. After a few days, I have noticed that the bread is sticky. I let it sit in the bag for another day and now I have the melon smell. I am pulling the bread apart to see the ropes. I think they are starting to form too but I am not so sure yet. So I will wait for another day or so to see where it goes. In the mean time, the first time I noticed the stickyness, I took one of the loafs out of the bag and wrap it in a cloth. Not only the stickyness went away but now the loaf is starting to dry.
I think I have what they call the rope disease in my kitchen however I think I am encouraging it by putting the loafs in plastic bags. If I havent done that, I dont think I would have ever caught it. I have read sanitizing with vinegar and things like that but I am starting to feel like, it is impossible to get rid of it without some kind of professional cleaning method and I just have to learn to live with it meaning not using plastic bags for storage, not letting the bread sit outside for more than a day in summer, maybe only baking sourdough or adding vinegar to all the breads I make to increase acidity etc. Do you learn to live with it or do you just get rid of it? It surely has discouraged me to bake. I am curious what everyone thinks.
thing about rope is that it usually starts inside the loaf, not on the surface. Bagging too soon might be causing stickiness and encouraging mould outside on the crust but do cut the loaf open and look at the inside. Look at the crumb.
If the crumb is getting "wetter" and not drying out but rotting, then you may have rope.
Mini Oven,
The loaf is already cut in the middle and the stickiness develop on the cut side. The mellony smell is there too. The only thing I didnt see yet are the ropes. Does regular mold smell like mellons too?
Stick your finger onto the side of the bread and pull it away and see if strings form as you separate your finger from the surface. OR cut another slice of bread and slap it back onto the loaf and pull apart.
Melon smell is not always with mold. But always with rope. Sweat sickly overripe fruity smell.
Get yourself a good sturdy sprayer and some vinegar. See if you can find it at 10% concentration or more and dilute to 10%. Start with your counter tops and your baking equipment, boards, racks, knives, refrigerator and flour storage area. Maybe that is enough to stop it. Move dirt and any potted plants away from your work surface. Don't store root vegetables with your baking ingredients. Bake a little and see what happens.