Bread

[granville]

wtf is with all this fridge bread. Who wants cold, wet bread? Not me!

I totally agree. Except I'm even worse as mom likes to store it in the freezer!

She's all like: "oh just put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and it tastes fine". I think the woman has lost her sense of taste if she thinks that. She does it to preserve it, but it's not necessary when the sell by date isn't even expired yet.

 

[science]

wtf is with all this fridge bread. Who wants cold, wet bread? Not me!

I totally agree. Except I'm even worse as mom likes to store it in the freezer!

She's all like: "oh just put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and it tastes fine". I think the woman has lost her sense of taste if she thinks that. She does it to preserve it, but it's not necessary when the sell by date isn't even expired yet.

Wow, you're mom is exactly like my mom! She does that too lol

 

[Szyslak]

If a face could launch a thousand ships, then where am I to go...

I keep my Bread in the record player baby.

Baby I'm-a want you, baby I'm a need you...

I said this in an earlier post, but refrigerators don't keep your bread fresh. They in fact make it stale faster.

Bread is a carbohydrate composed primarily of polysaccharides called amylose and amylopectin. What makes bread stale is when the amylose and amylopectin in the bread bond with each other.

At the molecular level they're moving extremely fast, and the speed at which the polysaccharides move is governed by temperature. By chemical kinetics, the higher the temperature, the faster they move, and the lower the temperature, the slower they move.

When amylose and amylopectin are moving more slowly, they have a better chance to bond with each other. When you put bread in a refrigerator, you essentially lower the kinetics of the molecules and effectively increase the probability that amylose and amylopectin will form bonds with each other (hence your bread goes stale).

You can increase the kinetics by putting the bread in the oven, but then you lose moisture to evaporation. So in essence, you can really never get bread back to its original state.

But don't mind me. You guys can keep putting bread in the refrigerator

So I guess that helps explain why bread gets really soft when microwaved. Can a certain level of introduced energy break the bond between the amylose and amylopectin for a short time?

I'm also curious about what role exposure to air plays in the process. Clearly exposure to air hastens the "get stale" process, but is that because of lost moisture or increased rate of bonding?

 

[Densetsu]

So I guess that helps explain why bread gets really soft when microwaved. Can a certain level of introduced energy break the bond between the amylose and amylopectin for a short time?

I'm also curious about what role exposure to air plays in the process. Clearly exposure to air hastens the "get stale" process, but is that because of lost moisture or increased rate of bonding?

If there were some way to put energy into the bonds without increasing temperature and vaporizing water, then I suppose it would be possible to reverse the staling process, but I'd be hard-pressed to think of how it could be done. I'm sure if there was an economically viable method, someone would've already come up with a contraption to do it.

Since there is a lot of moisture inside bread, and air has relatively little moisture compared to bread, the water inside the bread will diffuse into the air (move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration). Any water between amylose and amylopectin leaves, and allows the two molecules to interact with each other more easily.

BTW, I've always meant to tell you this, but I'm diggin' your Faxanadu merchant icon! Brings back fond, old-skool memories of my junior high years!

 

[Galacta]

In the Fresh Refigerator, LG, Lifes Good.

 

[Szyslak]

Since there is a lot of moisture inside bread, and air has relatively little moisture compared to bread, the water inside the bread will diffuse into the air (move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration). Any water between amylose and amylopectin leaves, and allows the two molecules to interact with each other more easily.Makes sense. Thanks for the response.

QUOTE(Densetsu3000 @ Dec 19 2008, 03:39 AM) BTW, I've always meant to tell you this, but I'm diggin' your Faxanadu merchant icon! Brings back fond, old-skool memories of my junior high years!

Glad to hear it. It's just a little tribute to one of my favorite games from my youth. One of the early identifiable signs of a life-long gaming addiction. Hmm, I was probably right around junior high when that game came out as well. I won't comment on how old that must make you.

Definitely good memories of a great game. I've got one of the songs from the game stuck in my head as I type this.