A sourdough loaf is at its absolute best for about four hours. Everyone who bakes knows this and nobody says it out loud, because it sounds like bad news.
It isn't. It just means the job changes after those four hours. You stop protecting the crust and start protecting the crumb — and the two want opposite things. That tension is the whole of sourdough storage.
First: let it cool. All the way through.
A loaf out of the oven is still cooking. The crumb is setting, and it's letting go of steam the entire time. Put it away during that and you've sealed the steam in with it.
Cool it on a rack rather than a board, so the base isn't sitting in its own damp. Then check it properly: press your palm flat against the bottom of the loaf, not the side. The base is the last part to cool. Any warmth there and it isn't ready.
This is the most common reason people are disappointed by bread storage of any kind, and it has nothing to do with what you store the bread in. A bag can't fix a loaf that went in warm. Nor can a bin, nor can plastic.
Day one: cut side down on a board
Don't wrap it at all. Cut the loaf, then stand it on the cut face on a wooden board. The cut face seals itself against the wood, and the crust — the reason you bought or baked sourdough in the first place — stays exactly as it was.
Nothing beats this on day one. We sell bread bags and we'd still tell you to do this.
Day two and three: cloth
By the second morning the cut face has dried back far enough that the board isn't enough on its own. This is where cloth earns its place.
What you want is something that lets water vapour out slowly rather than either trapping it or dumping it. Plastic traps: the crust softens, then goes leathery, and the loaf turns before it hardens. A bare board or an open shelf dumps: by the third day the crumb is dry all the way through.
Cotton with beeswax worked into the weave sits between the two. The wax slows the cloth down without closing it — vapour moves out at a trickle instead of a rush, so the crust keeps enough dryness to hold its crack and the crumb keeps most of what it started with.
One thing worth knowing before you buy any waxed bag: worked-in wax and sprayed-on wax are not the same product. Hold the lining up to a window. Worked-in wax sits between the threads, translucent where it's thin and cloudier where it pooled. A sprayed coating reads as an even film lying on top of the cloth, and it starts lifting at the folds within weeks.
Which bag suits which loaf
Shape decides this more than pattern does. A broad round boule wants a wide cut and a mouth that opens flat; a tin loaf or a stack of rolls wants tall and narrow. And a loaf you carry home warm from a bakery wants a wide mouth you can leave open until the base is cool.
Three bags for three kinds of loaf
Day three onwards: the freezer — and you should have done it sooner
Freezing is the only method here that actually halts staling rather than slowing it down. Everything else on this page buys you hours. The freezer buys you months.
The mistake almost everyone makes is freezing a loaf they've given up on. Whatever state it goes in is the state it comes out. Freeze it on day one, while it's still good.
Slice it first. A frozen whole loaf is a project; frozen slices go into a toaster from solid. The full method is in freezing bread and thawing it without a soggy crust.
Reviving a loaf that's gone hard
A stale loaf isn't a dry loaf. The water is mostly still in there, locked into recrystallised starch, and heat unlocks it. Run the crust briefly under a cold tap — properly wet, not damp — and put the whole loaf into a hot oven for eight to ten minutes.
It comes back out close to fresh. It stays that way for about an hour, and you can only do it once. More on that in reviving a stale loaf, and what to make when it's past reviving.
Four things not to do
- Don't refrigerate it. Bread stales considerably faster just above freezing than on the counter — why the fridge is the worst place for a loaf.
- Don't store it in plastic if the crust is the point. Plastic is genuinely right for a soft sandwich loaf. For sourdough it undoes the thing you paid for.
- Don't put it away warm. Worth saying twice.
- Don't machine wash a waxed bag. One hot cycle takes the wax out of the weave and into the drum.
Get the size right before the cloth — measure the loaf, not the bag. And if you're not yet convinced you need one, the case against buying one.