A large wheat sourdough miche, with cut side down on the countertop.
I am always surprised by how often I get asked this particular question! My customers that buy sourdough loaves at my bakery here in Central California often want to know how best to preserve their investment in good bread each week, and we would end up having a conversation about it on my porch (for me sometimes many times a day!).
After Bread Baking for Beginners was published, I was suddenly the bread mom to a growing herd of brand new baby bakers. They also wanted to know how to best store their bread that they had invested their time, care, and high-quality ingredients into making at home.
I will now reveal to you these mystical and magical secrets only known to me! The very finest methods of storing good bread!
If you have a large crusty sourdough loaf, you can simply keep it with the cut side down on the countertop. The exposure to the open air will keep the quality of the crust on the loaf. This method is great for loaves that are large, have a lot of whole-grain flour in them, and are made with sourdough like the bread I sell to my customers. It’s also great for bread you plan to eat over a couple of days while it is still fresh, although I have had bread like this 6 days after baking and it was still lovely to dip in soup. This method will not work as well for smaller, yeasted, mostly white flour bread, or bread made with less moisture, those will dry out and stale stored like this, but don’t worry we aren’t done talking about bread storage…
Bread for customer pickup at Alchemy Bread in brown paper bags.
If you have ever bought good bread from a quality bakery, you have likely received your bread in a brown paper bag. We bakers love brown paper for a few reasons, it’s natural, it’s compost-able and often (always in my case) recycled. Paper has a breathable quality that improves the keeping quality of a crusty loaf while keeping it from getting to hard to cut. If you are baking bread at home and want to gift it to someone in a paper bag or store, simply be sure to cool it completely before bagging. You don’t want steam and condensation trapped inside the bag with the bread, this can make the crust very soft.
Kindergarten Honey Wheat loaves with beeswax wraps
With some loaves, keeping the loaf soft is the overall goal of storing the bread. This is especially the case with sandwich-type loaves, like the Kindergarten Honey Wheat Bread that I make with my kids, and all enriched bread; like brioches, challahs, and milk bread you find in my book. My favorite way to store these types of bread that must be kept soft is with beeswax wraps. These are fabric coated in beeswax, they are washable, reusable, and when you warm the beeswax with your hands the fabric will stick to itself. These are also a great all-purpose replacement for plastic wrap around your kitchen, you can wrap half a lemon, a sandwich, or cover a bowl of rising dough with these wraps. As you can tell, I typically can’t say enough how much I love these things. I have them in lots of sizes and use them every day. You can find them on my Materials List (along with many other baking tools I recommend).
Sliced Sourdough
For longer-term bread storage scenarios, I recommend slicing the entire loaf, Ziploc bagging, and freezing. This is great for people that live alone and can’t go through a whole loaf in a few days, or people that live far from their favorite bakery (you can stock up on multiple loaves and freeze them!) For best results it’s important to slice the loaf when it’s still fresh and make your best attempt to get all the air out of the bag before freezing. The slicing is important because then you can thaw one or two individual slices as needed in your toaster (or by toasting in butter in a skillet). I have had a friend make me grilled cheese on frozen bread that she bought from me, and I was surprised how good it was and how perfectly it had held up in the freezer. If you need more convincing on this method you can read this manifesto on freezing bread in the New York Times.
If you haven’t started baking your own bread yet, you can get started with this free recipe, with my book, with the tools on this materials list, and with my online techniques class and I’ll get you started on the right path! With my book, class, and a handful of tools, you can have an enriching and relaxing new hobby, and impress your friends and family with your new skills. Don’t forget to tag me in your baking adventures on Instagram @AlchemyBread so I can be proud of you! Happy Baking & Keep Rising! -Bonnie