How to water glass eggs and preserve them at room temperature.
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This will change your lives y’all.
Seriously.
Did you know that you can preserve fresh, raw eggs for 8 months to a year, and sometimes even up to 2 years at room temperature!?
Who knew?
This method of preserving eggs is very old actually, even though it isn’t very well known today. People used this all the time, right up until the 40s or 50s. Because, especially out in rural areas, there wasn’t electricity so people couldn’t use refrigerators or freezers. So they would preserve their eggs like this all the time, and the eggs will last for months just at room temperature!
But, how cool is it to be able to have yet another way to be self sufficient like this?
Not dependent on a refrigerator or freezer.
Ahhh, makes my heart happy.
Your hens will lay a lot in the spring and summer and then taper off going into winter. Sometimes they’ll even stop in the winter altogether. So with this method you can preserve all your extra spring eggs for when the hens are slow during the winter.
You can put supplemental lighting in your coop to make your hens lay all year. Because their laying has to do with the hours of sunlight. But I feel like if God made them to slow down a certain time of year then I just want to give them a break and let them rest if they need it.
There are several different ways to do this, but I am going to teach you what is, in my opinion, the best and the easiest method.
The noted percentage of success rate for this at 8 months is about 100%. Which basically means your eggs should still be great after 8 months of storage. Plus, 8 months to a year is all I really need these to last, so that is amazing! Some people have reported their eggs even being good up to two years with this method!
So it is spring here right now and we have been getting about a dozen eggs a day from our laying flock. We definitely can’t eat that many and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to sell them just to have to buy some from someone else in the winter. So I’m taking all our extras and water glassing them. Then we will be able to enjoy our own pasture raised eggs all year! For all our frying, baking and cooking needs.
How to water glass eggs and preserve them at room temperature
What you’ll need…
- 8 oz pickling lime
- 8 quarts filtered water
- Fresh unwashed eggs
- A container to store them in
- A scale
- A whisk
We are going to use pickling lime for this, and it is known by several names (hydrated lime, slacked lime, calcium hydroxide). It can be a little confusing, but if it has one of those names, then you are good to go. They sell this same thing in those little tiny Mrs Wages pickling lime packets for super expensive. But I buy this in bulk from Azure Standard. You could probably even find it at your hardware store.
You also need a container to store the eggs in. A plastic bucket, a pickling crock, a glass jar. I am using a food safe 5 gallon bucket with a gamma seal for mine.
Now let’s talk about your eggs for a minute, this is really important!
DO NOT DO THIS WITH STORE BOUGHT EGGS!
Because they have been washed, the pores are completely exposed, so the lime will get sucked right into your eggs! We definitely don’t want that! Either they’ll go bad and rot, or just taste so nasty that you wouldn’t want to eat them! You want to use your current day’s fresh, clean, unwashed eggs. Ones that still have that natural protective coating all over them.
You also want to make sure they haven’t gotten chicken poop or mud on them in the nest box. If they have, then just don’t use those. There are other ways to preserve eggs like that (such as freezing). If you keep having that problem, you might need to add fresh straw to your nest boxes more often. In the really muddy season you might have to change it every day. Or you can also keep your hens locked in for the morning until they’re done laying for the day. Then they won’t be tracking in so much mud from outside. If you are buying them from a local farmer, you can ask them for unwashed eggs.
So I make the solution once and then each day I add the eggs that I collect from the nest boxes until the bucket is completely full. Then I might even fill another bucket.
Put 8 quarts of water in your clean bucket. If you live on city water I’d highly recommend using filtered water. We have an imperial berkey water filter and absolutely love it! Here is my unboxing and set-up for the berkey water filter system.
You add to your 8 quarts of water, 8 oz of the pickling lime. So 1 quart of water to every ounce (by weight) of the pickling lime.
So easy to remember!
I love it!
Pickling lime is made of oyster shells or bones or lime stone that has been burnt in a kiln, then has been hydrated with water. So it is a very natural product, it isn’t a synthetic chemical or anything toxic that might affect your eggs. Sometimes this can be mistaken as just ground limestone, but you want to make sure it is actual hydrated lime.
Just dump the lime right in the water, and whisk it up! It turns a nice milky color.
So then once it is mixed, that is basically it! It’s all ready for the eggs, just room temperature water and hydrated lime!
Now every day, I’m going to add in my new eggs that our hens have layed.
When you start getting to the point where you have enough eggs in there that you can position them, make sure you put them with the small side down. This is just a good rule of thumb to know for storing them in general, in the carton or wherever. The reason is, because there is an air pocket on the thicker end of each egg, and if you have it going with the large section up, it’ll have a little less surface area. Less area that the air inside is touching the egg white and such. So then it won’t get any bigger, it won’t start sucking up the rest of the egg space. Which will start to happen, and that’ll decline your egg quality.
Obviously you can’t get them all perfectly positioned in the bucket, but just do your best. I try to just get as many like that as I can.
If after awhile I start running out of the liquid in the bucket I’ll just make up a little more and add it to the mix. But you want to make sure your eggs are always submerged under the solution. When they start poking out, that’s where you might run into trouble.
That brings me to the next thing to look out for, is evaporation. I am just storing mine in a bucket with an air tight gamma seal. But if you don’t have a lid and you’re using a crock or something, you can just put a nice layer of olive oil on top. It’ll just float on the surface and keep the air off of the water, and then just cover it with a cloth just so bugs or dirt don’t fall in. You can also use lard or tallow. Melt it, pour it in carefully, and it’ll rise to the top and harden and create a nice barrier.
If you have a cooler part of your house, somewhere not in direct sunlight, that’s where you’ll want to keep them for best results. Just like any canned goods or dehydrated foods.
Now, when I want to use these eggs, all I have to do is is take them out of the water glass solution and rinse them off. Just because I don’t want the pickling lime solution getting on the egg white as I crack it or anything. But that is basically it! As we need these over the winter, I will bring this bucket out of storage and use the eggs right out of it!
Blessings.
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We are doing this too! Some of our eggs have a coating on them now that looks almost like the lime has crystallized in the shell. Have you ever seen that?
I have a “chrystalized scum on top of my egg container. They are 4 months old. Not sure why?
That’s totally normal.
So it is about a quarter cup of lime per quart, since it is by weight? It is really cloudy and wants to separate. Did I do it wrong.
I’m not sure how much it is by cups, I just always weigh it out so I can be specific. But that is totally normal for it to seperate. The powder sits on the bottom of the bucket and on the eggs, but it’s still doing it’s job 😉
I also weigh the lime, but the container I use to weigh it in has a volume capacity of 3.75 ounce. The 30 grams that is ideal is less than a quarter of a cup, but I can’t imagine that a little too much will be a problem. A little too much is probably better than a little too little. Just my humble opinion.
Love this post. Does water glassing work with all eggs? Particularly quail eggs?
This is our first year of water glassing our duck eggs. We are careful to use only clean eggs, but we end up with a crystalized scum-layer on top of our container. I scrape it off, but it keeps coming back. Is this normal? Our glass jar has a heavy glass lid (no rubber seal, just weight), so I am not sure it that is the problem.
Yes that is totally normal! Mine does the same thing, so you don’t have to worry about scraping it off or anything, I just make sure to rinse my eggs off before I crack them into something 🙂
Can I use a large plastic jar that jalepeno peppers came in? I have extra fresh eggs and no glass jar right now?
So after I mixed it up, it didn’t look as milky white as it was initially. Is this normal?
Thank you!
Yes totally normal. The powder settles on the bottom.
Hi I’m getting ready to do my eggs.
Lol can you tell me how many approximately eggs can you use for the 8oz pickling lime?
By the way… your family is adorable!
What if an egg breaks in the solution? Is the whole batch ruined, do I need to add the eggs to a fresh solution, or are they fine? A bit of the yolk ran out but I was able to get most of it out.
Say you want to give someone some of your waterglass eggs, how long will they stay good once removed from the lime solution
thank you!
I want to know the answer to this too!! Did you find out the answer?
Going to try this! We have 32 hens that are now 8 months old. We’ve been selling our extra eggs, but I should be preserving them instead. Thanks!
Hi, first time glassing eggs. Just some quick questions. If an egg breaks, it ruins the entire jar. What happens if an egg breaks and you don’t know about it? Will it contaminate the other eggs that you think are ok to use? And then what? Does it make you sick? The eggs have to be clean before immersion, but you cannot rub the dirt off because it might affect the bloom. So does the egg have to be be 100% spotless to use? Also an egg that is unsafe to eat, will it be obvious that it is not good? Will it have an odor that also affects the entire jar? Do you have to boil the water before adding the lime? The water should be room temperature? I hope you have the time to help me!!! God bless you, Peg
Can you waterglass eggs that have the bloom on them but have been in the fridge?
Yes you can!
Do you have any problems with eggs cracking under the weight of other eggs in the 5 gallon bucket?
Nope, I’ve never had an issue with that, I’m sure all the water helps with the weight distribution.
I just bought some fresh unwashed eggs. When I picked them up, they were keeping them in the refrigerator. Will those be okay to water glass in the lime solution? Thank you.
Can I use unwashed eggs that have been refrigerated? Also, am I correct in reading that the eggs stay in this solution until used up?
I’m getting a thin crust on top of my water glass water. Is there a reason you know of?
I have been placing my extras in a food safe bucket and now have 12 dozen eggs. I raised the lid to show my friend and saw that one egg had a crack and a big glob of yellow was attached to the side of it. After carefully going through the bucket, I found several more like that. I read online that if one was cracked then the entire batch would be bad. Is there any truth to that? Not sure how to proceed and want to cry thinking about losing all of those eggs. Thoughts?
Can the eggs be 2 weeks old?
Yes, as long as they haven’t been washed yet.
Can you rub shortening over store-bought eggs to form a coating and then waterglass them?
I wouldn’t personally use store bought, but that could possibly work, I have heard of preserving eggs by smearing butter all over them. But I’d use farm fresh eggs if you can. If you do it just be sure to test the eggs before you use them.
I get fresh duck eggs but they have dried mud on them. How can I remove the mud without ruining them, without exposing the pores that the lime can get into? Just use water and rub them with my fingers?
Never heard of waterglassing eggs, and I’m eager to try this.
Thanks very much for this info 🙂
I wouldn’t use them for this if they have mud and need to be washed, you’ll probably need to wait until they lay them somewhere clean and dry.
What if the eggs may be fertile in early stage and you don’t know?
If you think they’ve started to grow because you didn’t collect them soon enough and a mama hen sat on them, then I wouldn’t use them.
I just put eight eggs into a jar with 1 quart of water, and 1 oz of pickling lime. I mixed the lime into the water and poured it over the eggs, but there is a large amount of sediment at the bottom, so I don’t think it dissolved. Is this ok? Or should I try again?
Sediment at the bottom of the jar is normal.
Will this work for quail eggs?
Yes!