anyone tried freezing home-made bread

[WhatsMyNameAgain]

Hi there,
I've only recently got to grips with making my own bread (by hand, no bread-maker here)
this recipe is yummy yum yum!!!
this no-kneading one is ok for a quick one too, but comes out a bit sticky.

Anyway, back to the point. Since it's so time consuming, I was thinking maybe I should try makind several loafs at once and freezing them? I'm not mad on the idea of freezing ready bread tho as it's going to come out a bit damp, you then have to stick it in the oven again, running the risk it'll come out too dry.

I was thinking of freezing the dough, I tried that with non-bread yeast dough which is widely used in my home country for sweet and savoury pies. It's pretty similar to bread dough just a bit softer, it's milk-based and usually has butter and a little egg in it. It's often sold frozen over there too. So what I did was, do all the proofings it needs, then form several balls out of it and freeze. Take out a ball or two, leave till it's ambient temperature, roll out and use.

I'm not sure whether that'll be ok for bread dough tho, and how should I do it? Maybe after 1st proofing? Then let it defrost, form a loaf and do the final proofing? Or, form a loaf and freeze and then proof after it defrosts?

has anyone tried anything like that?

Yes, I do it, it's fine, don't put it in the fridge tho

The beauty of the bread maching (in my case) as I see it is that I can make a loaf whenever I need one rather than having to buy in bulk and freeze it. I've frozen crusts before... use them to make breadcrumbs... and I think the bread, when defrosted, is rather dry. OK for breadcrumb purposes, obviously.

Now two sons back from school/uni, I have decided I am only going to bake once a week. Froze one of my last batch and when it came out of the freezer (no reheating required) my wife reckoned it was one of the best loaves I had made. That was down to the mix of flours, not the freezer, but freezing certainly did not spoil it, and didn't make it damp either.

Wrap it in an airtight poly bag, then freeze. Thaw out, unwrapped, overnight (on the worksurface, not in the fridge) and it should be fine.

thanks merly,

that's exactly what I do with my pie dough! Only I wrap it in clingfilm and loosen it very slightly when defrosting.

Just froze a loaf's worth of cornmeal bread dough, when defrosted it'll just need one last prove before going into the oven.

Or did you mean you froze baked bread merly?

I freeze baked bread. It makes more sense that way. I just mix a double quantity, knead it together and split after knocking back. If you bake two loaves while the oven is on, you are using half the gas/electricity per loaf.