Water Glassing: Egg Preservation Experiment!

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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.
I'm glad that I started a thread on this experiment as it's encouraged so many to share their own experience with this method! Thank you for sharing, it has enforced what everyone else has said their own experience has been with this method! :)
 
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@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!

Lime egg test 1 month 12.12.2020.jpg


White coating! The Marans egg is on the right in this picture...the other one is from one of my EE's!
Lime eggs 1 month 12.12.2020.jpg
 
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