Have you ever encountered those moments when you have spent the great part of a day manufacture an array of homemade breads only to inspect that after a mere day or two they either turn moldy or become hard? Have you had to resort to freezing your bread in order to preclude these occurrences from happening? Well you may be surprised to learn that these events do not need to happen at all.
There are any things that you as a baker can do in order to try and exact these matters. First, you should all the time use one of the wire racks similar to those employed by the cake makers to allow their cakes to cool down naturally. Placing bread directly upon a counter is not a wise decision. everywhere that you sit a loaf of homemade bread along with a kitchens laminated counter is sure to ruin it. The basis for this is that possibly the moisture within the bread starts to evaporate and manages to wick its way up straight through the bread itself. Don't be surprised if your fresh bread goes hard merely sitting on a wooden shelf, or a metal or plastic rack. What you are effectively doing is drying your bread from the lowest to the top.
The previous editions of food science books failed to address this qoute primarily because at the time when they were written the scientists did not fully understand the complicated procedures complicated in bread going stale. Even today they fail to wholly understand the mechanics of such natural actions. Obviously, if the scientists understood why these events occur they could describe to us how to preclude it from happening. It is however potential that the process of staling can be effectively reversed by heating the bread to between 135 to 140 degrees F however, please keep in mind that if this is done too many time your bread will dry out entirely too much and you will not be able to reverse the process any further. freezing may help delay staling, so possibly your best procedure of activity would be to freeze a portion of the loaf and naturally not leave the perfect loaf out in the air.
Some homemakers will swear that the qoute can be eliminated by placing the loaf of bread in a wicker basket of some sort. They claim that by storing your bread in this manner you will not have a qoute with the lowest side of the bread getting hard. They have additional stated that they have had two week old store bought bread on the kitchen counter in a basket and remain fresh and soft. Now, homemade bread on the other hand will become moldy within a couple of days since they commonly contain no preservatives. When kept in the refrigerator they are also likely to go stale.
While researching I encountered some older cookbooks, in particular a few from Germany which state that if bread is settled in ceramics crocks along with an apple the bread will remain moist. I personally would think that due to the lack of allowable air circulation within the ceramics container the bread would fast dry out. A simpler alternative would be to only bake half the bread you commonly do. Put the extra in a freezer bag and then immediately into your freezer. Take out only what you need.
Several chefs hold strongly to the premises that by along with vinegar in your bread recipe it will act as a dough conditioner and preclude mold growth. As a general rule of thumb they advise adding the vinegar in the same quantity as you do the yeast. Ascorbic acid is universally used by the industrial bakers for this very same purpose. I myself use a bit of lemon juice in my bread. Surprisingly you can not even taste the vinegar used in the bread since it is in such small quantities.
At least now you have some idea of how to handle the problems connected with fresh made bread. Hope you request me to taste your next batch.
Problems With Fresh Baked Bread