I got a great reply back from King Arthur & I do believe it is the way I am storing my bread. They gave me lots of interesting information:
Quote from King Arthur Baking Company:
Thanks for contacting us here at King Arthur Baking Company.
There are a couple of things to talk about here. One of the most common reasons for dense/dry bread is measuring flour in cups instead of by weight. Everyone measures a cup of flour differently depending on how compact the flour is and every cup a single baker measures will have some variations as well. This means that weighing flour is always the most exact way to measure. If you do not have a scale, we've posted a great video on our website that shows our preferred method for measuring flour for our recipes:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/vide...-measure-flour
Another consideration is how you store your bread. Keeping bread in the refrigerator is our least favorite way to store it because the temperatures in the fridge cause the starches to stale very quickly. We have a great guide on storing bread here:
The best way to store yeast bread
If those considerations don't solve the problem fully, consider using the tangzhong method to keep your bread fresh and soft. This is a technique that involves cooking a small portion of the flour and liquid in your bread recipe to make a starch paste before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. By pre-gelatinizing some of the starches, we manage to bake up a loaf that stays soft and pliable much longer. You can learn more about this here:
Japanese Milk Bread
Introduction to tangzhong
A closer look at tangzhong
How to convert a bread recipe to tangzhong
Please let us know if we can answer any additional questions or assist you further.
Kind regards,
Clara
Baker's Support Specialist II
(800) 827-6836
[email protected]