Water Glassing: Egg Preservation Experiment!

[drstratton]

After watching a video on Water Glassing earlier this year, I decided that I would like to try and preserve my eggs for winter using this method! I plan on pulling an egg out each month to see how well they are holding up! I'm super excited about seeing the results from this process...my husband...not so much...

I will eventually add all of the information of my experiment into an article!

I purchased a 1 gallon glass jar with a lid. I am using Mrs. Wages: Pickling Lime (Calcium Hydroxide) and also some Olive oil as suggested in the video to help keep the water from evaporating! One thing that I think I did wrong from the start was that I didn't get the lime mixed as thoroughly as I should have, so I've been going in and gently spinning the jar left, right, left, right...I will continue to do this until it's fully dissolved!

So the tools & steps I used:
A 1 gallon Jar with lid...glass or plastic works fine
1 oz. Calcium Hydroxide (Lime) (Make sure you use only Calcium Hydroxide with no other additives)
1 quart cool water
40 eggs per gallon seemed to be a good fit
Olive oil

Thoroughly mix your Lime into the quart of water (1oz lime to 1 quart of water is the ratio)(do not do as I did ). I already had my eggs in the container (I wanted to have as many as it would hold and decided I would pour the lime mixture over the top...one quart was perfect in my container), but you can mix in the jar and add the eggs after, which is what I will do next time since I now know I can fit in 40 eggs to 1 quart! I then poured some olive oil on top and covered with the lid!

Day 1
I have it sitting on my laundry room counter at the moment...once the Lime is better dissolved I will place it in my storeroom in the basement! It's cooler and has less daylight!

 

[TooCheep]

I tried this for the first time last year. That same video is what got me started. Worked very well and I'm about to tap into my stash for this year. My takeaways:

• I had about a 90% success rate which another video indicated is pretty typical. A percentage of eggs will either leak out or have a crack, allowing the the lime-water in and spoiling the egg. They are generally obvious, but if you have any doubts, crack the egg into a cup to check it before using.
• The white/yolk are a little softer than fresh. I had a hard time making easy over eggs. They tended to be better for scrambled eggs. The eggs tasted fine- no lime taste.
• I store eggs when the girls are laying most heavily in the spring and they carry me through the winter when they pretty much stop.

I can see why old-time homesteaders used this technique. It works pretty well with no refrigeration. A good alternate would be to freeze scrambled eggs if you have the freezer space.

 

[KarynVA]

I posted on this thread on November 2020:

Over the past couple of weeks I have preserved a dozen eggs this way. What I really like about it is I can open the jar and add (or remove) eggs at any time and just keep on with the preserving. Whenever I have a surprlus of eggs, I simply start putting them in the preservation jar instead of the fridge or counter.

We have a very cool, dark, storage area where I can keep them. What I really need, though, is some good jars that are large enough for a dozen eggs or so. I think a 5 gallon bucket would be overkill, I'd never have that many surplus eggs.

And now, today, I actually used two of my water glassed eggs that I put in the jar back in November. Here is what they look like in the jar:

And here is what they looked like when I cracked them (a fresh egg is shown on the left and the two water-glassed eggs on the right:

The eggshells were tough, almost rubbery. It took some effort to crack and open the shells. I smelled the eggs, and the shells, and there was no odor at all. I smelled the fresh egg, then the water-glassed egg and no difference. No odor whatsoever.

The egg whites were a bit runny, and, as you can see, the yolks have a cloudy film around them. Not very appetizing to look at; but no matter, I was planning to use them in a quiche. I served the quiche to my teenager, who is usually the first to say, "Did you do something different?" whenever I make a recipe she knows well (and this, she does; it's one of her favorite dinners). She didn't say anything. She ate two pieces, as did I.

I will let you know in the morning if we survived the experience. I feel great so far!

 

[drstratton]

I want to try this, but I have a cock with my hens so I'm not certain how my potentially fertilized eggs would hold up.

Although, I guess there's no harm in trying.

I have 16 hens & 6 roosters...the roosters are about to get thinned out. I'm pretty sure that the eggs from the video are fertilized...and I'm also certain that all of the homesteads that have done this all those years use fertilized eggs too. They should turn out fine!

 

[TooCheep]

Early results for my second year:
Normally, I only make three kinds of eggs- hard boiled, scrambled and omelets. I'm not a baker, so I can't comment on how water glassed eggs work there.

I pulled a dozen eggs from my stash a few days ago. They were all 6-7 months old. One was cracked. I knew from previous experience that one would have a strong lime taste, so I tossed it. I made scrambled eggs and they were fine.

Last year, I only made scrambled eggs and omelets (good) and over easy (burst yolks). This morning, I decided to try hard boiling 5 eggs.

Three of them cracked, two slightly and one ejected a major part of the white and yolk. It was basically a poached egg. Not my favorite form and it really messed up the water with the other eggs, but it was quite edible. I also tried a cracked HB egg. It had allowed in some water and was slightly watery, but was otherwise fine.

My bottom line:
Water glassed eggs lose a bit of structure/strength over time, but that doesn't affect taste. I've had about a 10% loss rate due to cracking and lime infiltration. They work well for scrambled/omelets, but only a percentage will give ideal results for sunny side up/over easy or hard boiled. I believe they would work well for poached and baking, but can't really comment there.

I expect to continue using this system, but will better understand and work within it's limitations in the future.

Edit: The only other long-term preservation system I would consider is freezing. I understand there are also some limitations there. For example: You remove the eggs from the shell before freezing, so there won't be hard boiled eggs. It may or may not have a loss rate, but I don't have extra freezer space, so water glassing is a very good, inexpensive, no energy alternative.

 

[KarynVA]

The ice cream bucket is a good alternative for a container for my case. Thank you.

As for putting a date on the eggs, besides harming the bloom, I doubt it would remain legible after several months to a year in lime water. Since the purpose of this method is to store eggs for very long periods, I simply place a piece of masking tape with "Nov. 2020" on the jar. No need for exact dates on each egg stored this way, IMO. I guess if one were storing them in a 5 gallon bucket, but even then, can you imagine selecting eggs amongst so many eggs in a bucket and finding the dates on each one before determining which one to remove and use? Not very practical. Month and year (or span of same "Sept-Dec 2020") will work.

 

[drstratton]

@Sequel you beat me to it!!! I just tried them out!

1st Month Taste Test!
Sorry I missed my deadline, but it was only by 2 days...I've been gone and life gets in the way sometimes! I decided to pull out 2 eggs and try them! The egg shells have a bit of a white coating on them from the lime water, but the taste of the eggs is still spot on! I do wish that I had added these eggs to the lime water as soon as they were laid, but as I stated at the beginning I saved them on the counter until I had 40 eggs, so some of them had been on the counter 1-1.5 weeks before they were placed in the lime water.

At 1 month the egg yolks already appear to be a bit flatter than fresh laid and the whites are definitely runnier. I really wish that I had some eggs that have not been fertilized just to see if there is a difference! I should also have set aside some in the fridge from a month ago as that would have been fun to also compare! Oh well, maybe I will do that next year! The egg on the left is from one of my Marans hens, their yolks are always a darker color, even though they all free range!

White coating! The Marans egg is on the right in this picture...the other one is from one of my EE's!

 

[preciouschick]

After watching a video on Water Glassing earlier this year, I decided that I would like to try and preserve my eggs for winter using this method! I plan on pulling an egg out each month to see how well they are holding up! I'm super excited about seeing the results from this process...my husband...not so much...

I will eventually add all of the information of my experiment into an article!

I purchased a 1 gallon glass jar with a lid. I am using Mrs. Wages: Pickling Lime (Calcium Hydroxide) and also some Olive oil as suggested in the video to help keep the water from evaporating! One thing that I think I did wrong from the start was that I didn't get the lime mixed as thoroughly as I should have, so I've been going in and gently spinning the jar left, right, left, right...I will continue to do this until it's fully dissolved!

So the tools & steps I used:
A 1 gallon Jar with lid...glass or plastic works fine
1 oz. Calcium Hydroxide (Lime) (Make sure you use only Calcium Hydroxide with no other additives)
1 quart cool water
40 eggs per gallon seemed to be a good fit
Olive oil

Thoroughly mix your Lime into the quart of water (1oz lime to 1 quart of water is the ratio)(do not do as I did ). I already had my eggs in the container (I wanted to have as many as it would hold and decided I would pour the lime mixture over the top...one quart was perfect in my container), but you can mix in the jar and add the eggs after, which is what I will do next time since I now know I can fit in 40 eggs to 1 quart! I then poured some olive oil on top and covered with the lid!

Day 1
I have it sitting on my laundry room counter at the moment...once the Lime is better dissolved I will place it in my storeroom in the basement! It's cooler and has less daylight!
View attachment 2408989

I was going to update my water glasding but saw your post and decided to put it here. I have 13 hens and still get 8-10 eggs a day. Sooo.... back in november I water glassed a lot of eggs. They are 3 months stored. I bought the plastic container I saw on a homesteaders video. I have taken some out and have only tried boiling them. I washed them before boiling them. PRO's....taste fresh. peel easy. No lime taste.
CON's... you have to prick the shell before boiling them. which I didnt do, so they cracked after putting them in boiling water! Next I will try frying them. Then update.

 

[KarynVA]

Thank you for posting this. I have been planning to try it once I have enough surplus eggs; but I'll never really have a lot because I only have 3 chickens. I may try it using Mason jars. Here is a description of how to do it using Mason jars, which hold 14-18 eggs.

 

[aart]

though its not an emergency situation so why is chatting a problem....?

Because in the future if someone wants to study this for info they don't need to be wading thru a bunch of chatter. There are chat threads/forums for that.