Make your bread cooling more efficient.

Once your bread exits the oven, it enters an extremely crucial stage: cooling. The goal is to move the bread as soon possible on to packaging. Yet do that too quickly or too slowly, and you’re going to end up with a lower quality product, or product waste. The goal is to decrease the internal temperature of the baked bread from 93–97°C (200–208°F), at depanning or coming out of the oven, to 32–43°C (90–110°F).

How is bread cooled?

Over time, baked bread loses moisture and dries out due to differences in water content between the crumb and crust. This can be managed:

• Manually by placing on cooling racks after depanning (ambient or natural cooling)
• Automatically using racks, trays, or continuous conveyor belts (or spirals in wholesale breadmaking operations)

Too much time cooling:

• The internal temperature is too low
• The finished product is drier and firmer with brittle, harsh eating qualities (crumbly)
• The dryness and loss of moisture contributes to a faster loaf staling

Not enough time cooling:

• Bread sidewalls will be weak and may collapse while passing through the slicer
• Slices will be ragged and may tear due to excessive moisture remaining in the loaf and the crumb being too soft
• Gumming up of the slicer blades thus increasing downtime
• Pilling of the crumb
• Excess moisture due to condensation in the wrapper, thus encouraging mold growth