Bread storage
February 27, 2024 1:07 AM   Subscribe

How do you store bread on the counter? Plastic or metal bread bin, cloth-covered basket, paper bag, waxed paper bag, etc? What are the features of your preferred storage device that keep your bread from going stale for a couple of days? I rotate all sorts of (non-Chorleywood) bread, from crusty sourdough to brioche - do you store the different types of bread differently? (Not interested in fridge or freezer storage, I have that covered)
posted by tavegyl to Food & Drink (14 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: This depends so much on your climate. When I lived in arid California, I used a waxed paper bag or one day was all it took for a loaf to be hard and dry as a rock. Now that I'm in damp England, I have the oppsite problem: mold comes quickly, and too much enclosure makes the bread soggy.

This also depends on what bread characteristics you want to preserve longest. Are you looking to keep crusts crunchy? Then you'll need some permeability. Are you looking to stave off staleness throughout the bread? Then you'll need less permeability. Do you want to avoid mold for as long as possible? You might need to use a more complete barrier like a plastic bag.

I tend to prioritize crust for baguettes I bake, which means wrapping them in a thin cotton cloth bag that is loosely covered with a biodegradable food waste bag and keeping them out on the counter. It's just the magic combination that works for the 2-3 days it takes me to get through the 2 baguettes I bake at a time. I tend to prioritize mold-free longevity for slided bread I use for tast and sandwiches, so those stay wrapped in a plastic bag in a closed cabinet. This keeps everything mold free for the 5-6 days it takes me to get through a loaf.

Good luck!
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 1:39 AM on February 27 [9 favorites]


Almost always paper bag. The nice waxed kind I find at my grocery store to pack my bagels and pastries on when purchasing them. I've been known to snitch a bag or two when shopping. Three days is probably the limit for keeping them out. My everyday white Wonder bread has so many preservatives in it I just leave it in its plastic sleeve. Lasts a week at least.
posted by Czjewel at 3:55 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]


I do store different types of bread differently. I use a plain, unwaxed paper bag for naturally-leavened breads or for breads that contain fats or adjunct ingredients like fruit or olives. For commercially-leavened “lean” breads, I use a paper bag inside of a sealed gallon zipper bag. The crust suffers a bit, but comes right back with a short reheating in a moderate oven.
posted by la glaneuse at 5:08 AM on February 27


I got this thing in 2020 and I love it for bakery bread or anything I make myself.

Store bought commercial bread I just leave in its plastic.
posted by phunniemee at 5:28 AM on February 27


Best answer: I bake bread for a living. The best thing to do is buy your bread frequently to minimize storage but I recognize this is not a perfect strategy.

It sort of depends on your climate and also what kind of bread. For my preferred styles of crusty long fermented loaves with moderate to high proportion of whole grains they store well just right in the counter. I tend to stand them upright on the cut side to reduce air exposure and otherwise count on the crust to retain the moisture. If I’ve cut more than one side and cannot keep it in contact with the board I generally put it back in the paper bags I use to bring bread home. A traditional breadbox serves much the same function by limiting air exposure and circulation.

If you live in a less humid environment and are eating softer breads like pan de mie and brioche, a plastic bag is fine. The biggest logistical problems with plastic are that it traps much more moisture, so you’re going to lose any crust or crunch, and potentially inspire molding if it’s rather humid. Also it’s plastic so I try to avoid for environmental reasons regardless of logistics.

I rarely if ever need to do this myself as I have a nearly limitless supply of fresh bread, but I have on a few occasions successfully resuscitated very dry and/or stale bread (they’re scientifically different processes but the results are basically the same) using the running water method. Run your bread under tap water for longer than seems prudent - 20-30 seconds, less soaks in than you’d thing - and toss it back in a 400-450 degree oven for 4-5 mins. Not entirely like new but brings it back to life quite well.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:04 AM on February 27 [8 favorites]


Keep in mind that whatever you use the bread will still quickly go stale, and the best way to deal with that may not be to up your storage game, but to learn to plan your bread use better, and learn the many ways to use stale bread. Sometimes the weather and life events will not cooperate and you end up with stale bread. You are kinda supposed to. A lot of the time food that doesn't lose freshness does that by not having much nutrition in the first place.

Learning to use bread crumbs as thickener and to make savoury and sweet variations of bread pudding and stuffings may be easier that trying to keep the bread appearing fresh. The order to use up your bread would be Sandwich> toast/rebaking> sops> french toast> stuffing or bread pudding> bread crumbs. Bread crumbs can be used as a thickener or be used to make a crumb coating.

I think nobody has yet mentioned linen bread bags. I believe the trick to making them work is to shake some flour around in them to more tightly seal the weave, and then to store them in a wooden bread box to protect against mice. And of course you need to start with a really tight high percale weave fabric.

I never use paper bags or leave the bread out uncovered, because I want to avoid brittle crusts at all costs, but that is a personal preference. For short stays on the counter a well wrung out bread towel works for a covering, the same one you use to cover the bowl when the dough is rising.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:18 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]


We use our microwave when it is not in use as a microwave.
posted by jeszac at 6:23 AM on February 27 [3 favorites]


Metal bread bin, not so much to keep the bread fresh (the only real way to do that is to eat it while it still is) as to keep it safe from marauding cats.

This has been something of an arms race. Wasn't long after buying the bread bin that Luna worked out how to bat the door open, so I added a little pin lock - just a hole drilled into the top of the bin, right where the back of the door ends up when it's closed, with a small nail dropped in to stop the door from swinging open.

She responded by upping the violence, and had soon bashed the door hard enough and often enough that the nail actually tore through the bin's paper-thin steel, swung out of the way, and let her force the door. So I drilled a slightly bigger hole and replaced the little nail with a rather thicker bolt.

Her next move was to bat the entire bin off the counter, causing the bolt to drop out and the bin to disgorge its contents onto the floor for her browsing pleasure.

So now the bin is screwed down to the counter. And I've further enlarged the hole, and screwed in a 1/4" x 1/2" roofing bolt with its fairly flat mushroom head on the inside of the bin (the swinging door just clears it) and the nut on the outside. That bolt has a hole drilled all the way through its axis, into which we drop a pin made by partially straightening out a link of jack chain. The other end of the chain is hooked through another couple of holes in the bin so that the pin won't get lost.

Even though the pin is a loose enough fit through the bolt to be easy to get in and out, its protruding inside part is now held securely at right angles to the skin of the bin and can't be shoved aside. There's no way that the door can open with the pin in place that doesn't involve actually bending it, which Luna is not strong enough to do despite never having given up trying.

Every now and then I hear her in the kitchen, bang bang clang bang banging at the bread bin door, and I just smile to myself with the complacent opposable-thumbs-owning satisfaction that's been the undoing of cat cohabitants the world over for centuries and will surely be mine in due course.
posted by flabdablet at 6:41 AM on February 27 [14 favorites]


Best answer: Been home-baking all the bread for 40 years. Have had various bread-bins and bread-boxes but now use a cotton bag hung on a hook which works nicely to allow air circulation while inhibiting water loss. We have thick solid granite walls chronically prone to mould but have never had [visible] fungus on the bread. I put the roti-adjacent flat-breads in a paper flour sack. Every few days, we throw the bread bag in the wash with the tea-towels. Sure beats trying to clean the seams of a steel bread-bin.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:15 AM on February 27 [2 favorites]


I have multiple friends that swear that the secret is using a Balmuda steam toaster to rejuvenate day-old croissants, which at minimum would extend to brioche.
posted by A Blue Moon at 7:26 AM on February 27


My answer based on my climate (Northeast US, damp and cold) but we switched a few months ago to metal bread box and the difference in mold reduction has been amazing. The box has some tiny air holes and it's German so I figured they knew about bread.
posted by cobaltnine at 7:28 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]


As others have said, it can vary a lot based on your local climate and your home setting. For me in Minnesota, indoor air will be warmish and very dry part of the year, but may get much more humid for stretches in the summer.

I tend to bake a week's worth of bread at a time. I use one of the larger Rubbermaid storage bins with a snap-on lid, it's big enough to store the loaves I make.

Sometimes in the summer, bread will get moldy for me on about day four or five. I've also seen accumulated crumbs in the container develop little mold colonies at that time of year. If this happens, I wash the container well with regular soap and water before I use it again.

Bought baguettes turn to rock in my environment within a day and a half or so, I never buy more than one at a time. Homemade cinnamon rolls, brioche, panettone might last more than a week, assuming no mold. Those richer breads with more butter and fats in them might be kept in a plastic bag instead of the bin.

(I stayed across the street from a wonderful bakery in Kourou, French Guiana several years ago. Only downside was that their baguettes would wilt and turn almost to paste in the tropical heat and humidity after a day.)
posted by gimonca at 8:16 AM on February 27


Keep in mind that whatever you use the bread will still quickly go stale

(A) Depends on how you define "quickly." (2) Unless the bread has a higher acid content, like sourdough or other dough with a long fermentation before baking AND/OR it uses a method like tangzhong to bind up water and starch in a way that slows the staling process. Pain ordinaire or a baguette won't last as long, because the fermentation isn't long enough to build up the necessary acids, and a baguette is also at a structural disadvantage because of its ratio of crust and crumb.

I'm in the mid-Atlantic region of the US and bake sourdough, and I just store my bread cut side down. It's good without toasting for two or three days after baking (like, I baked on Sunday, today's Tuesday, and the bread doesn't need toasting; tomorrow I might want to toast it, but probably won't really need to). Days four and above, the crumb will still be in pretty good shape but I'll probably toast it just to bring some life back to the crust. With my sourdough it takes more than a week for the crumb to go completely stale, and usually by that time we will have eaten everything and I'll have baked more.
posted by fedward at 8:56 AM on February 27


Texas, climate controlled house. I have found that a metal bread box has increased the life-span of all my breads by 3x at least. I purchased it because I thought it was cute, I was shocked that it had this effect.
posted by magnetsphere at 7:14 PM on March 2


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