What’s better than freshly baked breadfragrant and soft? It’s a pity, however, that this can be counted among the “ephemeral” pleasures given that in the space of a few hours the loaf tends to dry outbecoming hard. Why does this happen? The answer lies in a series of chemical processes involving the starches present in the Flourbut also in the way this food is preserved, since some good practice allows it to be kept fresh for longer.
The main ingredient used to prepare bread is the Flour (something known even to those who do not immerse themselves in leavened products on a daily basis): it is mainly composed of starch – a polysaccharide composed of glucose molecules linked together by amylose and amylopectin – which undergoes a fundamental transformation during cooking, the gelatinization.
It means that the water present in the dough penetrates inside the starch moleculescausing them to swell, break and finally to gel. That’s why the warm bread has that typical soft and porous consistency. However, as time passes, this effect temporary starts to to reverse: we are faced with another phenomenon, called retrogradation of starches.
This process consists of the crystallization of the amylose and amylopectin chains which occurs while the bread gets coldas they try to regain their original form becoming more rigid. During the molecular rearrangement, the water which had been trapped during gelatinization is expelled by the starches and migra towards other parts of the product, thus contributing to its drying out.
Storage: why not the fridge and yes the freezer?
The answer to this other question comes from the retrogradation of starcheswhich is favored by relatively low temperatures, around 5 °C, which is why storing the loaf in refrigerator can speed up the hardening process.
This means that putting the bread in the fridge it’s not a good idea, why we do it to become stale with greater speed. The natural habitat of bread is at room temperatureinside a paper or cotton bag, to also avoid the potential development of mold.
However, if you don’t plan on consuming all the bread in a short time, the freezer It could be a good option. A very low temperaturesaround -18 °C, the retrograde of starches slow down drastically. Put the bread in the freezer when it is still fresh, it allows you to inhibit crystallization and, once defrosted, will retain much of its original texture.
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