January 19, 2015 - 2:55pm
Keeping bread
I live in sub-tropical climate and would like to know how fellow forum members in similar climates keep their precious breads from getting mouldy. We had a lot of humidity lately (70-80%) and I just had to toss my left-over batard because it showed signes of going 'the other way'.
Has anybody a fail-proof way of avoiding this?
Usually I keep my bread, after fully cooling, in a plastic bag in my bread box. A fortnight ago I eliminated the plastic bag and wrapped the bread in a tea towel and put that in the bread box. Still, it only kept for three days.
Thanks for sharing your ideas and what you successfully do.
Ingrid
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then pop the slices in the toaster and they come out great. I tried storing it in the fridge but it gets dried out in there.
I might cut up a loaf and use one half fresh and the other half sliced from the freezer.
You're welcome Ingrid. The funny thing is that when I lived in the Caribbean the baker would send a bread truck to each neighborhood and we would each buy our fresh bread made just for us and finish it by that evening. I didn't understand the mold problem until I moved back here and lost several loaves. It was a friend who actually does not like food who tole me about freezing bread and just popping it in the toaster. It turns out that despite his distaste for food, he was right ability freezing. I would have never guessed! LOL
I live in a temperate climate but slice-and-freeze nearly all my bread. That way we have a variety of breads on hand. A friend who also does this makes his lunch sandwich with frozen bread. By lunchtime it's thawed, and no need for an ice pack.
There's a refreshingly candid moment in Flour Water Salt Yeast, where Forkish concedes that the best way to store bread at room temperature is in a plastic bag or container. It is far from perfect, but I think that the theory is that the crust (helped by paper) is easier to rejuvenate than the crumb (helped by plastic)
I am fully with those suggesting slicing and freezing. Before I started baking, I never imagined how well bread could freeze. If the storing is careful, bread freezes so beautifully.
For a different perspective: My sister-in-law gave me Andrew Whitley's "Do Sourdough" over the holidays, and in it, Whitley has a really charming timeline for bread-use:
Day 1: Goes without saying. Perfection.
Day 2: Sandwich
Day 3: Toast
Day 4: Bruschetta
Day 5: Crisp Breads
Day 6: Croutons
Day 7: Breadcrumbs
All of that is good...but freezing sliced is the best way to transport yourself back to bake day (almost!)
In spite of all the dire warnings about bread stale-ing in the refrigerator, I find that toasting or heating bread stored in plastic in the frig. brings it back pretty close to fresh. I too will often freeze bread in plastic, particularly if I've made several loaves or made a particularly large boule. All the books will also tell you that sourdough breads keep much better than non-sourdough and my experience backs this up.
all the good ideas put forward. Thank you all so much!
BGM, I forgot to mention I was talking about my beloved sourdough...
Off to refresh my starter for the next lot!
I live in a damp climate, but it's temperate, not hot, which makes things a bit easier. I keep my bread wrapped in a tea towel in a plastic box, but I tend to only have half a loaf out at a time. As soon as the bread has cooled, I cut the loaves in half, put half in the box and freeze the rest wrapped in plastic. To defrost I take it out of the plastic and leave in at room temp, wrapped in a tea towel. After defrosting, it's amazingly close to fresh bread.
I also change the tea towel and rinse out the bread box every 2-3 days - the towel gets surprisingly damp and I feel like it could harbour mould spores.
Cutting the bread in half also lets me assess its edibility - early last year I went through a phase of producing gummy bricks, and finding out in the early morning that the bread you're trying to make your sandwiches out of has the consistency of toffee can put a damper on your day. Forewarned is forearmed...
that was the way I treated my bread, but did not freeze half of any loaf, only whole ones if I made two loaves.
Yesterday I cut my loaf in half to keep one wrapped in the tea towel in my bread box. The other half I sliced and put in the freezer. Should be all good now!
I keep my loaves in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. The last loaf lasted a month when a tiny speck of green mold started - I shaved the mold off, toasted the bread, and enjoyed it with butter.
-Dave
I slice my bread as needed, and then wrap the loft in a tea fowl and place it in a plastic bag.