What's the magic to storing bread?

[rabbithorns]

We are trying to move from using a fridge to having an old fashioned cool pantry room when we move to the desert and build off-grid. But I've been keeping all our bread in the fridge for years and I don't know how to store it out of the fridge. In fact we have to keep muffisn, cookies, everything in the fridge in the summer because of the ants. Air-tight fars make them moldy and tins don't keep the ants out.

If I keep it out of the fridge it either gets 1) moldy or 2) ants (they find new ways in now and then during the summer). How does a bread box work to prevent those things?

I know the cool pantry will be a different deal altogether (my grandparents had one), but I want to start changing the habits we have now.

Any ideas?

[amyamanda]

Sounds like a freezer won't be an option for you, then, but I wanted to throw this out there anyway...I find that if bread has been frozen and thawed, it keeps better in my cabinet than bread that hasn't been frozen. It gets moldy/stale MUCH slower. I think the freezing retards whatever organisms are hibernating in the bread.

Sorry if that is no help. I'm guessing you won't be freezing anything in the desert. But for us northern folk it can be useful.

[kimmie-pooh]

I'm no help. I make my bread, then store it in a ziploc bag and put it in the fridge. Hope others have ideas for you!