DRYING VERSUS STALING
Drying and staling are not the same thing. Here’s
the difference:
- Drying involves the evaporation of moisture
from within a piece of bread. The structure of the
bread remains more or less the same, though it
become less pliable because of the moisture loss.
Dry, not stale, bread will be crisp like a cracker
and crumble into a fine powder. Bread that has
dried out is very hard to refresh.- Staling is the process by which moisture
migrates out of swollen starch granules and into
the spaces in the bread. The moisture-deprived
starch molecules then recrystallize, forming tough
structures within the bread. Stale, not dry, bread
will taste leathery and chewy, not crackery or dry.
Bread that has staled can be refreshed by heating
it, causing the starch granules to reabsorb
moisture.It’s quite possible for bread to stale without drying—
just think about what happens to a loaf of
preservative-free bread when you place it in the
refrigerator overnight. Staling actually occurs much
faster at cooler temperatures, which is why your