Recently our fridge expert @airedale shared some of the things he’d never do with a fridge, including using it to store bread.
“While refrigeration works miracles in extending the life of most perishable foods, the cold of your refrigerator causes the starch in bread to recrystallise much faster than at room temperature,” Ashley says.
“This means that, while bread stored in the fridge won’t go stale or mouldy in a hurry, it will rapidly become hard and unappetising.”
A lot of people have told us they store their bread in the fridge anyway - what’s your experience?
Stored in fridge. Doesn’t go hard or unappetising, say, over a period of 5 or 6 days. (There are however many different types of bread and they start off with different textures.)
Mr Z insists on bread in the fridge, which lasts a week. We get a local bakery multi grain large unsliced in a thin plastic bag, which is used for thick sliced toast every morning. I lost the argument on storing out of the fridge long ago.
We are a bread in the freezer household. Have tried storing it in the fridge once, and found that the bread does firm up and seem to get drier. This is most noticeable with sandwiches pre-made for the following days lunch the night before - this is the only time we store bread in the fridge. In the freezer, immediately after thawing it is almost in the same condition as when it was frozen.
Fresh bread out on the counter for a day or 2, otherwise freezer only storage here. If not making it myself, we usually buy 4 loaves at a time, 3 of which go immediately into the freezer.
People think that staling of bread is only drying out, which is not the case, there are chemical changes too. Keeping it in the fridge contributes to both.
There are times when a combination of high temperature and humidity encourages mould on things that would not usually have a problem. In late summer I have to keep potatoes in the fridge or they turn to smelly sludge and sometimes we have to do the same with bread.
Doesn’t the best strategy here depend on the local climate, type and production qualities of said bread, household environment, and personal consumption patterns?
There’s little doubt certain fresh bread bakers and their products are superior in many ways. Never to be frozen or refrigerated from memories of a close family member who made bread a livelihood.
Perhaps a habit learnt from living somewhere, hot humid and generally mould comforting. Mass produced chemically stabilised bread goes in the freezer. One loaf at a time it’s subsequently placed in the fridge where is remains unripened (IE mould free) for up to one week. It is used mostly for toast.
Bread rolls are used freshly purchased the same or next day, or frozen until needed. Unpackaged fresh loaves are generally not left out for more than 24 hrs, after which they need to be frozen or used in some other way asap.
There’s bread? and then there is freshly baked BREAD!
Unless it is in a plastic bag which a lot of bread is sold …where ambient temp and humidity would have limited effect. Possibly temp would have an effect on the rate/speed of spoiling/mould growth.
Plastic wraps would stabilise humidity, as there isn’t any water losses or gains through the impermeable plastic film. The moisture in the bread will remain relatively constant, along with the small amount of residual air in the bag. As temperature increases, very minor amounts of water may move from the bread to the air, and visa versa with decreases. The change in moisture content in the bread would be insignificant and wouldn’t cause an acceleration of staling from the bread drying out. Moisture from a sealed bag can’t disappear.
Not really. A plastic bag will stop some moisture loss but it doesn’t stop staling. Ambient temperature does alter the rate of staling and bread in a bag will be at ambient.
Also plastic bags at room temperature can do other things such as allowing the crust to absorb moisture from the crumb (we usually like the crust to be crunchy and crumb to be soft) and raising the humidity in the bag which may allow moulds to grow.
From Wikipedia:
Staling is not simply a drying-out process due to evaporation.[1] One important mechanism is the migration of moisture from the starch granules into the interstitial spaces, degelatinizing the starch. The starch amylose and amylopectin molecules realign themselves causing recrystallisation. This results in stale bread’s leathery, hard texture.
Bread will stale even in a moist environment, and stales most rapidly at temperatures just above freezing.[2] While bread that has been frozen when fresh may be thawed acceptably, bread stored in a refrigerator will have increased staling rates.[citation needed]
That sealing bread in an impervious container does not prevent staling was discovered by Boussingault in 1852.
My favourite food chemist Harold McGee tells us for best freshness keep bread at room temperature for a few days, not in the fridge, and if you want to keep it longer freeze it while still fresh. He goes into the chemistry behind this which I am not going to reproduce.
Living in a warmer and humid climate our bread, whether bought or made at home, gets sliced and put straight into the freezer. We only take out as much as we intend to use, and is generally toasted. The toasted bread is as fresh as when it was put into the freezer.
If bread is left out, it goes mouldy within a couple of days. The same applies to other unpackaged or open perishable items.
I’ve been storing my bread in the fridge in a plastic bag (squeeze out excess air) for the last 52 years!!! If it’s going to be long term storage it goes in the freezer.
When bread if put in the fridge at our place it goes through this ritual. Take out of freezer. Defrost on counter. Prepare snap seal large container with absorbent paper on bottom. Transfer defrosted slices to container and put more absorbent paper on top before sealing and putting in fridge. This reduces condensation in the container, prevents squished and/or mouldy slices.
I’m a bread-freezer person. I don’t eat much of it so 2 weeks is about how long it takes to get through it. If I don’t freeze, I’m throwing out bread which would otherwise be perfectly good. so fr me its Freeze->microwave thaw, then sandwich or whatever. if I want toast, straight from freezer to toaster.
I have exactly the same problem particularly over the summer months when I’m usually having salads for lunch and eating even less bread. Bread can be toasted from frozen or if I’m taking a sandwich with me to eat for lunch it will thaw naturally in it’s container.
…where ambient temp and humidity would have limited effect. Possibly temp would have an effect on the rate/speed of spoiling/mould growth.