All too often, bread goes stale — or, worse, mouldy — before you can eat it. For bread that tastes fresh-baked, consider storing it in the freezer.
Photo by pollobarca2
Serious Eats put several bread storage methods to the test, and came to the conclusion that if you want the freshest bread possible, you need to wrap it with plastic or aluminium foil and store it in the freezer. Keeping the well-wrapped bread at room temperature is the second-best option:
In lieu of acts of god and any other kind of divine intervention, the best way to store bread is well wrapped in plastic and/or foil in the freezer, whether sliced or not, then reheated in the oven. If you don’t want to deal with reheating the bread, wrap it well in plastic and/or foil and keep it at room temperature; it won’t be as good the next day, and it will only get worse from there, but you should be able to eke some extra life out of your bread before it’s no longer enjoyable. And if you do let it sit for too long (or if you make the mistake of refrigerating your bread), pop it in the oven and you should be able to reverse a fair amount of the staling, assuming you had it wrapped well enough to prevent drying.
Whatever you do, don’t store bread in the fridge.
Does Refrigeration Really Ruin Bread? [Serious Eats]
Comments
3 responses to “The Best Way To Store Bread For Freshness Is In The Freezer”
my vogles lives in the fridge. works well.
Yeah! F*ck science!
In my family we’ve always put (sliced) bread in the freezer unless we’re expecting to eat it within the next day or so. Whenever we need a few slices, we peel them off with an ice pick (depending on how long the loaf has been frozen) then leave them to defrost on the bench for five minutes.
You can’t leave it for too long though, or the water in the bread starts to sublimate and the bread dries out while developing an icy crust. Not a fan of soggy bread. (Even then, it’s generally OK for something like grilled cheese, as the oils from the cheese penetrate the bread and help make it edible.)