I'm planning on prepping some eggs for the kids for first time and I think doing the Easter dye would be a fun way to gift some eggs and take advantage of their small / unusual size.
1. I would boil them before dyeing right? (it's been awhile since I've done this if ever)
2. What are your tricks for getting the goop off! Long soak? Specific brushes? Would the boil take care of it?
Thanks!
What I have done with home-raised chicken eggs, that may start out dirty:
Wash the eggs first (until they look clean)
Boil the eggs
Cool the eggs
Dye the eggs
More details:
To "wash," I just rinse each egg under running water. I rub it gently in my hand while I'm doing this. It usually doesn't take too long to get the stuff softened up and off. Depending on the egg size, I may hold two or three in my hand at a time. If they are extra-dirty, I may get several wet and then rinse/rub each one individually. I would not do a "long" soak, because even the worst eggs do not take more than a minute or two to get clean. I don't want eggs sitting for a long time in poopy water.
Boiling the eggs: I figure this should kill any germs that may have been on the eggs, which is why my "washing" is only designed to get them looking clean, with no attempt at sanitizing.
Cooling the eggs: sometimes I run cold water into the pan, other times I lift them out with tongs or a slotted spoon and let them dry/cool on a towel. Either way, I want them cool enough to handle safely before anyone tries to dye them.
Dyeing: I often use the packages you can buy in a store, that have little tablets of color and instructions on how to use them. I get the cheapest package I can easily find, typically around a dollar or two. The longer you leave an egg in the dye, the darker the color gets, although there is some point when it's as dark as it will ever get (I think that point is less than an hour, but I know it is more than a minute, and thus longer than the attention span of some small children. Young children tend to produce pastel-colored eggs because they want to pull them out again really soon.)
[Edit: do NOT use those dye packets for quail eggs. Someone posted that later, and now I'm adding it here for clarity.]
White or light-colored chicken eggs show dye much more clearly than brown ones. Light brown chicken eggs give somewhat muted colors, and really dark chicken eggs are not really worth trying. For chicken eggs with darker speckles, the speckles are generally dark enough to stay pretty close to their original color.
I've never done quail eggs, but I assume most of the basic how-to-dye-eggs information would work equally well any kind of egg.
