During the spring and summer months, chickens produce more than in other times per year. Some people have tried freezing eggs, but frozen eggs end up watery, and just not as good as the original. What usually ends up happening is the eggs go to the neighbors, and you’re just happy to see them go. But, there’s an inexpensive way that you can preserve your eggs in a shelf stable way for several months. How? with a method called water glassing eggs.
The concept of water glassing eggs has been around for more than 100 years. Earlier iterations, and some even today, used sodium silicate was used. Lime has been the more common choice in recent years for homesteaders and other egg producers around the world.
How Does Water Glassing Preserve Eggs?
The water glassing process creates a very alkaline solution that makes it difficult to impossible for bacteria to grow in. That works together with the natural protective bloom on the fresh eggs, and allows you to store them in a shelf stable way. You’re able to pull the eggs out of the solution for months, and its like they’re fresh, right from the coop.
How to Water glass Eggs
Do NOT clean your eggs. You need to select clean eggs that are free from dirt, chicken poop, or other debris. You can LIGHTLY brush off some debris, but you don’t want to go through the natural bloom on the egg. That bloom is what helps protect it from bacteria. Place these unwashed eggs into a container. We like containers that range between a quart to a gallon, though many people use 5 gallon buckets.
We recommend that you want to boil the water before hand and let it cool to sterilize the water. Many people don’t, but we like to start with a clean slate. Distilled water is actually best for this. You mix the water with lime,
Sodium silicate is used for water glassing eggs at a 1:9 ratio of sodium silicate to water. As I mentioned, more people are using lime over sodium silicate. Lime is mixed with water at a ratio of 1 lb to 2.5 gallons of water.
The lime will gradually settle to the bottom of the “glass” over time, but don’t worry, that’s normal. Make sure there’s about 2 inches of water over your eggs, which means you can do 6-9 eggs in a quart mason jar, depending on the size of your eggs. You want to make sure that you’re moving the container as little as possible while its in storage. Believe it or not, eggs are fragile.
Our go to lime is Mrs Wages Pickling Lime. This lime works great. This is the highest reviewed and best selling lime on amazon. When I was looking into getting this for water glassing eggs, I searched all the amazon reviews and every single one that mentioned they’d used it for water glassing eggs had given it a 5 star review, and I’ve been happy with it as well.
What do you do if there is a cracked egg in my water glassed eggs?
If there’s a cracked egg in your water glassed eggs, you need to figure out how long its been cracked. If you crack one while pulling another out, or adding them initially, you can react to that and take care of your remaining eggs, no problem. You definitely don’t want to eat a cracked egg that you pull out of the water, but your other ones might be salvageable. If its sat on the shelf for a couple months, the water is cloudy and has a bad smell to it, just don’t mess with it and toss it. If its fairly recent, you can probably save the rest of the batch. Crack a couple eggs and test them before hand to be sure though.
Carefully remove all the eggs, discard the broken ones & add fresh lime/water mixture. In 2-3 days, check your container for smell. If it smells off, then the broken egg was in there too long & contaminated the entire batch. If they smell fine, you’re generally good to go, but I would move this batch to the front, and continue to monitor and scrutinize your eggs. It’s better to be safe than sorry, so if there’s any doubt, throw it out.
We recommend, as the saying goes, to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, or water glass jar if you will.
Is Water glassing Eggs Safe?
The US Department of Agriculture has endorsed this in the past, but I haven’t found any government source on the subject since. In 1935 the USDA sent out the circular below on the whole process. I couldn’t find any word from the FDA giving any opinion on it in more recent times. There are varying sources around the internet, some saying that its perfectly safe, and some trying to explain why it isn’t safe. Thousands of people are currently using this process for preserving eggs.
It’s important to note that it won’t work if you wash the natural bloom off the eggs. It’s not safe to eat the lime itself, and the bloom helps protect from that getting into the egg. Additionally, for safety reasons you’ll want to rinse off your eggs before you use them to avoid getting that lime into your food.
All that being said, while its something we believe in, this is something you’ll want to try at your own risk, and we encourage that you exercise caution throughout the process, much as you would with all your home preservation methods.
FDA On Water Glassing Eggs
I haven’t found any resources or any statements from the FDA on water glassing eggs. You can find plenty of websites that aren’t the FDA that say that the FDA warns against it. I haven’t found any actual warning though. The FDA has resources and statements on raw egg shells, salmonela, commercial egg handling, when you should and shouldn’t introduce eggs to a baby, and more, but absolutely nothing on water glassing eggs.
USDA Is Water Glassing Eggs Safe 1935
This document was released by the USDA on water glassing eggs, and on egg preservation. Their current best recommendation for storing eggs is to store them in the fridge and use them within 4-5 weeks. That said, I haven’t found anything from the USDA warning against water glassing eggs. In fact, through my research, I only found additional resources on water glassing eggs, including a 1919 poultry club circular released by the USDA, and this 1935 document on home methods of preserving eggs.
Can You Water glass Duck Eggs?
Yes you can water glass duck eggs. The complication with duck eggs is that you need the eggs to be pretty clean for water glassing and that can be somewhat of a challenge with duck eggs usually getting so muddy. If you wash them off too much, you can take off the bloom, in which case you won’t be able to water glass them. If you’ve got clean eggs, then yes- go for it. People are also water glassing other eggs, such as quail eggs and goose eggs.
How do water glass eggs taste?
If done right, and you rinse them off before you use them, they taste fine, though we’d say they taste more like store bought eggs than fresh from the coop. They can get a bit more watery the longer they sit, but it is less than a frozen egg, and it doesn’t affect the flavor all that much. Like with frozen eggs, the other most common way of storing eggs long term though, there is no flavor or texture difference in a baking context.
What can affect the flavor is mishandling. If the bloom has been compromised or removed, the lime will leach through the shell and flavor your eggs. That’s both gross and unhealthy. The most important thing to remember to watch out for things going wrong, just as you would with your canning, freezing, pickling, and every other method of food preservation. Use your eyes, use your nose, and save those eggs!
As we said before, our go to lime is Mrs Wages Pickling Lime. This lime works great. This is the highest reviewed and best selling lime on amazon. When I was looking into getting this for water glassing eggs, I searched all the amazon reviews and every single one that mentioned they’d used it for water glassing eggs had given it a 5 star review, and I’ve been happy with it as well.
Water Glassing Store Bought Eggs
The most common question we get is people asking- can I water glass store bought eggs? The answer is no. The reason? The bloom that’s on fresh eggs is washed off on store bought eggs. If you don’t want to get into the chicken raising game, you still have options. We recommend finding a local small time farmer that you can buy eggs from. They’ll be thrilled that they don’t have to wash the eggs. And then you’ll have the eggs with bloom intact that you’re looking for.
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