Long Lasting Keeping Bread Recipes

Looking for bread recipes that keep well at room temperature. Newby here and there may be some obvious choices I have not found yet via search.

We live on our boat in the Caribbean. Locally baked bread is a challenge - soft, sweat, and molds quickly. We do not have room to keep bread in a refrigerator. Not to mention that our easy bake boat oven does not hold temperature well, even with oven bricks.

One recipe that I developed keeps well. I think the honey is the key, but added gluten, oil, and whole fat dry milk helps. I have had this loaf go as long as a week before molding; it does not usually last that long.

Whole wheat flour - 198.5g
Bread or AP flour - 198.5g
Wheat gluten - 35g
Dry milk - 35g
Water - 305g
Safflower oil - 56g
Honey - 84.75g
Salt - 8g
Dry yeast - 7g

- Make a poolish with all wet ingredients and half of the dry ingredients. Mix well and let rest 30 minutes.
- Mix/kneed dry ingredients into the poolish.
- Kneed for 15 minutes by hand, or 5 minutes by machine. Add bench flour as you go to reduce stickiness.
- Rise, punch down, rise again, shape loaves and proof in pan that has been oiled and floured.
- Preheat oven at 425F. Reduce oven to 325F when the bread goes in.
- Bake for about 45 minutes until loaves have an internal temperature of about 195F
- Cool for 5 minutes, remove from loaf, and cool completely before putting a blast bag/ziplock.

Cheers, RickG

You might want to check out tangzhong and sourdough. Both processes relate to increased shelf life.

EDIT: also those little moisture absorber packets that come in pill bottles

Thanks, yes. I fed the sourdough today. The wholegrain loaves I make are sourdough and I usually freeze half the loaf. Tangzhong sounds interesting.

Rick, do you have a freezer on-board?
If so, and you have room try slicing the bread once cooled and then freezing.

Once thawed the bread is very good, both taste and texture.

Thanks, I will try this. I have frozen half loaves and that works well. Slices would be easier. Our freezer is ok, just small and does not go below 6F.

I have thought to post a similar question before. I bake primarily whole grain loaves, and they do stale, or dry out fairly quickly. Here's a list of things I've noted from other posts that can help. As with much of sourdough baking, these are things I've read and not independently verified. I'm submitting these for the sake of discussion and because of my interest.

reduce bake : from a forum post (to be found) to a commercial bakery where a consultant was identifying factors to reduce spoilage in their commercial product (overbaked bread was a key factor)
lower pH : additional acid helps extend storage (perhaps more relevant to sourdough)
scald : as mentioned above (I'm guessing other hydration friendly inclusions like chia might help)
gluten development : I'm paraphrasing from memory, but in a post on gluten development, I recall mariana mentioning dough with poorly developed gluten (some no knead breads) will not keep as long as bread with well developed gluten (I hadn't considered this previously)

Here is one tip I learned from Southern Ground for reviving bread:

If the loaf dries out, it can e revived by quickly running cold water over it to wet the crust (not soak, just wet), and placeing in a hot oven (400 F) for 7 to 10 minutes, until the water has evaporated. This method works really well to bring life back into a loaf, but the bread must be eaten at one sitting or it will revert back to its dried out state.

I find no-knead bread is a challenge to cook through due to the high hydration. I need to get it to 210F internal temperature, which is a long bake in the hot tropics. lower pH makes sense, I'll try adding some abscorbic acid.

If you have a lot of sun have you considered a solar oven? I remember my brother built one ages ago.

I just found this article. They have some ideas that could be applied for home/boat baking. And sourdough, as already mentioned. If you scroll to the right in the article, they give suggested amounts in bakers %. And sourdough, as already mentioned.

I'm in AZ and have a bit of the opposite problem.... Rapid drying/staling. Adding about a Tbsp of oil to the dough makes a world of difference.

Mary

Just a note that bread staling and bread spoilage are two different phenomena, and conditions that slow down one process may not do the same for the other.