Preserving eggs

[FenDruadin]

Summer is going to be gone before we know it, and I am dreading the long egg-free months. I know I can play with lights to increase production, but I like to give my girls a winter break. And right now I'm overflowing with eggs. So... let's talk preservation techniques!

For eggs that I want to use in baking, etc., here are the methods I've heard of:

* Sodium silicate, also known as water glass. I bought some from Lehman's and I just need to mess around with it and see if it works as well as it says it should.
* What about freezing? Do eggs freeze well for later baking? Break them into plastic bags and then remove as much air as possible?

For boiled eggs:

* Salted eggs (recipes?)
* Pickled eggs (recipes!)

What else? I want to know things like, how long I can expect the eggs to be usable with each method, recipes, techniques, prep time, benefits and drawbacks to the methods, etc.

Bring it on! (Thank you!)

 

[Moxiechick]

I just took a class in canning by the local Cooperative Extension. I mainly want to can tomato sauce, but was curious as to the possibility with eggs. I told the lady teaching the class that we had just gotten chickens, and that I was wondering about pickling eggs. She said that while most canned foods will store for a year and be kept at room temperature, that pickled eggs should be kept in the fridge and eaten within a month.
No long term storage for pickled eggs!

I've heard of folks freezing eggs, but they scramble them first.

I'd be very interested hearing about any other methods of preserving eggs.

 

[oberhaslikid]

I freeze mine for baking during the Holidays.I also have a few chickens that will be laying all winter so I do get a few eggs.Your eggs will keep in the fridge for 3 months.Some say longer But I wouldnt want to.
There is also a product called Kepeg that you can coat the egg keeping air from entering to make it store longer.
I have also read where some have used vasoline to do the same coat the egg trick.

http://www.eggcartons.com/product-exec/product_id/283/nm/KePeg_Egg_Preserver_KEP

 

[cheri222]

My grandmother used alot of egg yolks in her baking and she always saved the whites in a container in the freezer till she had enough for angel food cake. They always tasted great. I guess like the egg beaters stuff, just egg whites and they sell that frozen.

 

[BettyR]

Quote:
If you rotate your older hens out and replace them with new chicks each spring you don't have eggless winters. You can buy colored plastic leg bands and band each years new chicks with a different color so you don't get them mixed up. Then during the year each time you need a stewing hen for gumbo, dumplings, soup or whatever you just take one of the oldest hens. Then each spring you get 12 new babies and you have plenty of eggs all year long. The oldest hens in my flock right now are 4 years old, we just ate the last 5 year old hen on Sunday. We had company staying over for the weekend and I made a big pot of chicken and dumplings. An old hen boiled for several hours makes a broth that is out of this world.