How long can you keep bread good in a fridge?

[naita]

@rjk

As EJsGirl says, it is the gluten, or so I’m told. Water combines with the gluten and the starch grains during baking to give the bread its texture, and it goes stale as the water separates from everything else. (Stale-tasting isn’t the same as dry.) Refrigerator temperatures are close to ideal for that, so bread will start to get stale faster than at room temperature. Of course the warm bread will grow mold pretty soon, so freezing is best if you want to keep it a while.

According to “The Science of Cooking” it’s not a case of water separating from everything else. What happens is that starch molecules change from the form they have after cooking into a crystaline form, and absorbs water in the process. This process works the fastest around four degrees C, so keep bread out of the fridge if you don’t like it stale.