Why refrigerators are bad for bread

You probably already know that storing bread in the fridge only hastens its demise, but freezing it is a good way to store it. That might seem contradictory – after all both are cold, right? It’s not that simple, as Serious Eats’ Dan Gritzer explains, providing us with the science behind the staling of bread.

What causes that soft sandwich loaf to go from tender to hard involves far more than just moisture loss. In fact, that’s only a portion of what’s happening at a molecular level. The real reason has to do with the “retrogradation and recrystallization of starch”, which Gritzer informs us involves starch molecules returning to a structured state after being rendered into an amorphous condition through mixing and baking.

This reorganization occurs faster in cold temperatures above freezing, which is why the refrigerator is the worst place to stash that half-eaten loaf. Freezing temperatures, on the other hand, slow the process down considerably. Gritzer performed a test of various ways to store bread that included not only different temperatures but also different ways to wrap the loaves. He also informs us that you can actually reverse some of the staling of (well wrapped) bread by reheating it in the oven “and return the stale bread to a state much closer to its original glory.”