In a previous post have been described the complex physical-chemical phenomena that govern the progressive staling of bread.
We have seen how you can make it inherently more resistant to their own bread staling by choosing the most suitable ingredients.
We will see what is the key to implement some practical strategies that allow people to maintain for as long as possible the characteristics of freshly baked bread.
A prerequisite is needed: the bread product according to the protocol to be deemed organoleptically impeccable must be equipped with a dry crispy crust and a soft, moist crumb.
We saw in the manual what is the best practice technique to achieve this optimal cut into two parts and moisture seepage on a grid with the cut sides facing up. After about half an hour, time required for cooling, the bread is in a state of high organoleptic quality.
We saw in the manual what is the best practice technique to achieve this optimal cut into two parts and moisture seepage on a grid with the cut sides facing up. After about half an hour, time required for cooling, the bread is in a state of high organoleptic quality.
The conservation strategy to be implemented from now on should be to preserve for as long as possible this state of grace, which translates essentially to keep the crust dry and moist crumb.
The figure above shows the moisture distribution measured in a batch of fresh bread. As you can see the bread contains about 50% humidity, the crust just 10%.
If for any reason become wet or crumb crust loses too much moisture, the perceived quality of our bread quickly degrade to below the minimum threshold of tolerance.
The conservation of bread in the early days essentially translates into a problem of moisture management, keeping in mind that the bread sweats all the time giving up its moisture to the environment until they are dry completely.
exposing the bread directly to the environment (with relative humidity of about 40-50%) without hiding behind any barrier, we will achieve a high rate of sweating and within hours our bread has already lost much of its moisture, leading to dry quickly enough.
On the contrary, by enclosing the bread in a sealed high barrier to water vapor (ABS, polyethylene, polypropylene, aluminum) will get exactly the opposite extreme: oozed moisture will remain trapped between the container and the crust ruining it irreparably.
bread crumb soft then certainly keep longer, but the price will be high, the crust will be irrevocably sacrificed.
Under these conditions a hygrometer placed inside the container can measure relative humidity levels of 90-95% also, the ideal environment for mold growth literally all colors (white mucedo Mucor, Rhizopus nigricans black, pink Neurospora, Aspergillus green ...).
A possible solution the problem is to find a barrier with a permeability to water vapor term (WVTR, Water Vapor Transmission Rate) that leaves exude moisture in a controlled environment: neither too quickly (to increase the shelf-life of bread), nor too slowly (to avoid the risk of exceeding critical levels of humidity inside the container resulting in softening of the crust).
microguru
