Keeping Bread edible

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tarik

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Morning Guys,


Am planning to be offshore for about 10 days in June. Any tips for prolonging the life of shop bought sliced bread, what is the usual time it can be used for and is which is better - brown or white?

As always many thanks for all replies.


David
 
The processed ready sliced loaves are best as they have preservatives in. White probably slightly better but not a lot in it. Keep it cool and avoid any condensation so put it in a container don't leave it in it's polythene bag. May last 10 days but 7 more likely. Wash hands before handling it and minimise handling or leaving it exposed.
 
Forget shop bought white 'bread' for a start, it doesn't keep well.( and is full of **** chemicals and 'flour improvers'

Whole meal is better but if you want bread to last then make your own wholemeal from ingredients out the local health food shop. Ours , from the breadmaker , keeps for days on end and when it's done we make our own on the boat. It smells and tastes amazing and there are plenty simple recipes on the Internet.
 
Have you got an oven? take some yeast and flour, great for square oven tray pizza and bread. 10 days is long enough to get bored and bread making fills in the time as well as smelling and tasting great. Food that we took care of, trying to make it last was fresh fruit. I think you will struggle to get shop bread past 4 days. Opening a moldy packet of bread will just spread mold spores that you can't see around the cabin.
 
+2 for part baked
+1 for bake your own. Its really not that hard.

The shop bought bread, whole meal type, that has palm oil in it lasts about 7 days at home no problem, something like Hovis Granery lasts well. I would freeze the bread you want to use the last week and wrap them in bubble wrap that has been chilled (or newspaper) which keeps them frozen longer if you don't have a freezer. Place them in the bottom of your cool box. You should easily get 7 days of frozen bread that can be used on the second week with satisfactory results.
 
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Another vote for part baked.

We usually have one or two mini baguettes in the house. Bought some yesterday which, kept sealed in their protective atmosphere, have a best before date in mid June.
( made in France so genuine French bread)

Also agree with processed sliced plastic bread ... will keep much longer than real freshly baked from a bakery.
 
as an alternative to wheat flour bread, have you tried rye bread, either straight or as pumpernickel ? Lasts for ages.
 
Neil_Y said:
I think you will struggle to get shop bread past 4 days.
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?

How often do you go shopping at home, then? I generally go to Sainsburys once a week, and my bread doesn't all end up mouldy. Just ordinary sliced (sometimes plain white, sometimes with bits in) in its bag, in a cupboard. Ten days is definitely too long for normal bread, though if it were me I would see if the "seven days fresh" stuff in the shiny bags could be stretched.

Definitely take a good stock of part-baked though - as well as covering the last few days when the sliced stuff has gone green, it's much nicer! I use it all the time on the boat, and that's almost always daysailing. And I can definitely see the appeal of making your own - as you say, you need things to do.

Pete
 
Dark heavy bread (like rye bread, but other cereals also used) can be bought which last months in an unopened packet, as Sarabande suggested. Long-life pitta bread (plain or wholegrain) can also be bought in the UK.

More conventional breads suffer two forms of ageing: a sort of chemical process, plus drying. Keeping bread a poly bag in the fridge reduces both. As said, wholegrain bread lasts longer. Besides, anyone who tries to bring that sliced white trash onto my boat will be beaten, keel-hauled, dismembered and fed to the fish. Not that I've anything against them, of course. (The fish, that is.)

Best option, as said, is bake your own. It's not as laborious as you might imagine and the result can be the best bread you've ever tasted. If you have power and space to spare, an electric breadmaker makes it simple.
 
uxb said:
Forget shop bought white 'bread' for a start, it doesn't keep well.( and is full of **** chemicals and 'flour improvers'

Whole meal is better but if you want bread to last then make your own wholemeal from ingredients out the local health food shop. Ours , from the breadmaker , keeps for days on end and when it's done we make our own on the boat. It smells and tastes amazing and there are plenty simple recipes on the Internet.
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Sorry but this is a common misconception. The "flour improver" preservative e300 is ascorbic acid, or vitamin C to the lay person. White flour is bleached by leaving it in a sack for a month. Whole meal bread is only better for you because it contains the fibre from the grain and therefore you get more fibre in your diet and fewer calories per mouthful. There is a wealth of real information on the Internet alongside those recipes :)
Bread should be kept warm and dry, cooling actually makes it go stale, and moisture will make it go mouldy. Believe it or not, removing from the packet and using a bread bin is the best way to store any bread. It will go stale but remain edible.
 
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macd said:
Whatever the chemistry, Lustyd, fresh white bread doesn't keep and processed white bread isn't worth keeping.
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I don't know what you mean by processed as there are no processes involved other than a slightly better kneading machine. You also forgot to put "in my opinion" after not worth keeping. I actually prefer shop bought bread so can assure you that it is only your opinion.
 
The difference between 'processed' bread and bread from the local bakers is primarily high speed mixing - the Chorleywood method - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process. It enables the dough to carry far more water than a traditional dough and thus remains moist for much longer. It is a short time dough and because of that has no flavour. I do not know what other anti-stalers are used these days - if they exist in the finish product then they should be included on the ingredients listing, and they generally don't seem to have loads of E numbers listed. If they disappear then they are more likely to be baking aids. Things like milk can be used as an anti staler but probably not used much in high volume plastic bread these days.

I agree with macd - either fresh or not worth eating.
 
Pye_End said:
The difference between 'processed' bread and bread from the local bakers is primarily high speed mixing - the Chorleywood method - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process. It enables the dough to carry far more water than a traditional dough and thus remains moist for much longer. It is a short time dough and because of that has no flavour. I do not know what other anti-stalers are used these days - if they exist in the finish product then they should be included on the ingredients listing, and they generally don't seem to have loads of E numbers listed. If they disappear then they are more likely to be baking aids. Things like milk can be used as an anti staler but probably not used much in high volume plastic bread these days.

I agree with macd - either fresh or not worth eating.
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They are indeed listed, and they are indeed "E-numbers". As I said earlier E300 is vitamin C so please try not to speak about E numbers as if adding them is a bad thing because it isn't. The numbers are just a standard and language independant way to refer to ingredients. Certain newspapers, "health food" shops and food hippies would have us believe that they are all bad but it's simply not the case.
 
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