I know that loaves of ((freshly-)baked) bread should not be kept in the 'fridge. So is there a way to keep them cool and fresher in a hot climate - like this summer in many parts of the US, please? I usually bake sourdough etc without preservatives - so usually no mould… our kitchen (the coolest part of the house) is air-conditioned for most of the day. Nothing jumped out when I searched for such a storage device on line. Any recommendations, please, for anything anyone has successfully used? TIA!
Do you have a basement that you could store the bread? Not super convenient, but I use my basement to store some foods. I use a dehumidifier in the summer, so it is dry and cooler than the rest of the house.
Thanks, @alcophile. No, no basement.
But if humidity does as much damage as warmth, is that a factor I should look into?
High humidity may promote mold growth, but I think RH would have to be >60% to be a problem. I dehumidify my basement because, if I didn't, the humidity would probably exceed that number.
Is it their humidity that makes refrigerators unsuitable for storage?
No, it's starch retrogradation. It happens on the counter but faster in the refrigerator. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrogradation_(starch)
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/science/860-articles/story/word-of-the-week-retrogradation
To some extent you can recover by re-baking the bread, but you never get it to be like new.
Thanks, @tpassin - so it's an unwelcome hardening.
Without a background in, and only the merest understanding of, chemistry I can see how that unwelcome starchiness forms.
And that freezing prevents those re-alignments of the amylose and amylopectin chains.
I suspect that any quest for storage this way is a vain one.
Just as Alton Brown used to become really emphatic over not dishwashing knives, so I've seen many warnings against loaves in the fridge.
I seem to do OK with my simple bread box in the open. Just thought I might do better - especially in the hot weather.
Everyone's help much appreciated :-)
I often freeze sliced, baked bread to retain some amount of freshness and prevent mold. Light toasting does restore some of the original freshness, but as @tpassin noted, it's never quite the same.
If I froze a loaf, or slice, of say 8" x 8" x 2", how long would it take to thaw; then would it need more than a couple of minutes to toast?
I've frozen grocery store bread in the freezer before. To thaw, I just place it on a towel over night to absorb any moisture that may form. If you need to freeze, then defrost only enough for a 3-4 days at a time perhaps? Like what the other poster said, make mini loaves to freeze (sliced first, it's a pain to try to slice afterwards). Maybe get in the habit of taking a loaf out a set schedule. For instance, on Mondays and Thursdays? If you're just toasting it, you wouldn't need to thaw it. It just takes a few more minutes. Our toaster even has a frozen button.
It's hot and humid here, so if hotdogs buns are on sale here, I buy two and freeze one. One of my kids loves hot dog buns the best.
Thanks, @Sugarowl - some things that I hadn't thought of there… towel etc!
I just keep new loaves on the counter with the cut face down or covered with aluminum foil. I even did this in the summer when I lived in New Mexico without air conditioning. Of course, that was dry, not humid. With a good loaf of s/d, I can usually leave it for three days (if it's still around by then). After that it would be getting a little too dried out (probably retrogradated, I'm sure) and tough in the crust, and I would put it into a zip-lock plastic bag. That made it usable for toast at least for a few more days.
I did try a bread box at one point, but eventually gave it up as not being much if any better.
TomP
Thanks, @tpassin! Yes, it's dry heat here in California. I expect I'm probably getting the best results I can hope for from my breadbox.
I recently bought a bamboo breadbox. It helps to keep my loaves fresh for about a day longer than otherwise but has no cooling feature. I thought it could be made cooler. I placed two "blue ice" packs in the box, along with thermometers both inside and outside the box. In the beginning, the ambient temperature outside was the same as that inside (both 74*F). In the next half hour, the inside temp. decreased to 64*F, a difference of 10 degrees. The outside temperature remained approximately constant over the entire course. Over the next five hours, the temperature inside was at least 10 degrees cooler than the outside. The inside temperature then began to increase. After 6 hours, the difference was less than 10 degrees and rapidly decreasing. I stopped measuring. I think that I could have achieved lower temperatures for a longer time by using more blue ice packs and taping insulation to all walls of the box (except the side that has ventilation holes). However, it seems that this technique requires too much maintenance to be practical. Perhaps some else could think of a variant of this technique.
Thanks, @Petek!
I looked at bamboo, hopefully. I assumed that it would provide greater ventilation.
But what you did does seem a lot of trouble to go to for the payoff, doesn't it.
Yes, too much trouble for little reward. Perhaps a low-tech solution is to make smaller loaves. Freeze some and use one at a time. That's what I've done recently. See attached photos. Make two mini loaves in a bread pan, separated by parchment paper.