Bread is no doubt one of the nation’s favourite foods and a firm staple on the weekly shopping list.
One problem with it, however, is its notoriously short shelf-life, which can make it incredibly hard to keep fresh for more than a week.
Whether it is a whole loaf or sliced, shop-bought bread can garner mould spores and turn unpleasantly dry in the days after it’s opened – especially in warm kitchens.
Proper sealing and storage, as well as using a fridge when needed can help prevent mould and increase a loaf of bread’s shelf life.
One home-hacks expert known as Frakking Creations on YouTube shared a handy storage hack that can see your bread stay fresh and “tasting great” for up to three weeks – and it doesn’t involve freezing it.
In the video, they said: “Don’t you hate when your bread moulds too fast and you have to waste it by throwing it out?
“That used to happen to us too until we found a better way to keep it fresher and mould-free for longer.”
While this storage method works best in the summer months, it’s great for when central heating makes kitchens warmer than usual in the winter.
According to the YouTube sensation, who is a self-proclaimed “bread lover”, fresher bread boils down to two fundamentals – cutting holes in the bag and keeping the bread in the fridge.
This means that, unlike most food storage solutions, the bread can stay in its original supermarket or bakery packaging.
Before putting your loaf of bread in the fridge, cut some holes in the bag so that the moisture doesn’t remain inside, condensate, and cause mould to grow faster.
All that’s needed is a pair of scissors to make the small incisions around the top of the bag where it ruches before it’s sealed.
The YouTube content creator suggested adding a few holes to the back and underneath the loaf too.
However, it’s important not to add too many at once, or it will defeat the object of the bread being sealed in plastic in the first place. If there is lots of condensation on the bread, making extra holes may reduce this.
The YouTuber explained: “When you make small cuts into the bag, the bread will slowly dry out, so you can adjust how many holes you cut to prevent the bread from drying out too much, and by doing this, the bread lasts longer than what you would normally expect.”
Some bread experts claim this method of storing bread could cause the bread to become stale, thus decreasing its shelf life, but the results of the experiment proved otherwise.
As for how long the bread can last, the content creator claimed: “So today is June 1, as you can see, this is the bread that we have been keeping in the fridge.
“Best before date is May 24, and we’ve been able to keep it fresh, and without mould for longer than that time, simply by keeping it in the fridge and by doing this hack – nine days longer and still tastes great.”
