Freshly made bread time limit...

Joined
Dec 31, 2020
Messages
120
Reaction score
111
Do you mean until it goes mouldy or until it's past its best? Fresh loaves are best eaten on the day. The following day we use them for toasting but they're nowhere near as good and the crust gets a bit tough. If bread goes stale, you can literally just run it under a tap for a couple of seconds and bake in a hot oven for 5 minutes and it livens it back up. You can only do it once and it's still not as good as fresh but it's a handy trick.

I've recently tried something called tangzhong when baking hot cross buns and they stayed soft and fluffy like the day they were baked for about 5 days after and were still very nice after a week. But that method gives you soft bread that is good for buns, and which you probably don't want in a home-baked loaf.
 
Joined
Jun 22, 2017
Messages
4,064
Reaction score
2,080
if i made some fresh bread from scratch, how long is it supposed to last...?

Depends.

There are so many factors that come into play: the humidity in your kitchen; type of bread; where you slice it; what you store it in.

When I lived in VA, I could not keep a loaf of sourdough bread more than 2 days in the humid summers. In dry Northern California, that same bread will keep up to 4 days.

A baguette is not worth eating after a few hours. But if you reheat it in the oven, you can bring back the nice crust.


This will explain a few things about storing bread




Starch retrogradation is the cause of the stalling of bread.

 
Joined
Dec 31, 2020
Messages
120
Reaction score
111
i dont...?
Well, you might, but most home bakers like the crispy crust and chew you get with a home-baked loaf. As far as I understand, tangzhong gives you a soft, fluffy crumb and won't give you a crisp crust. It's nice for buns and speciality bread but I imagine it would give regular bread a texture more like sliced, processed store bread that stays soft until it moulds. Norcal will know though!

This is the kind of crumb I got on my hot cross buns:

tempImageiWMeeZ.jpg
 
Joined
Jun 22, 2017
Messages
4,064
Reaction score
2,080
i read the article, could you elaborate on that a bit?

We are creatures of habit. When we slice cake into wedges; a loaf of bread from the end, that leaves an exposed end to air that goes stale faster.

if you slice down the center, and press the leftover cut exposed end together and wrap, the cake and bread will not stale as fast since the cut area is not as exposed to air.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
6,542
Messages
47,235
Members
5,496
Latest member
Jack Sr

Latest Threads

Top