Number one way for Preserving eggs.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by capt-couillon

If you can purchase eggs straight from the chicken, they will last 2 to 3 times the length of washed eggs you purchase in the supermarket.... Hard to find these days in the US

We get these from the farm market. Also important is that they are never refrigerated. Tell the farmer you'll come back tomorrow or whenever for fresh and unwashed, unrefrigerated eggs. Turn them 3-4 times per week and keep in the dark, dry &cool if possible.

[JanetGroene]

I found that Vaseline imparted icky flavor to the eggs and my bright idea of using spray varnish was really a disaster. I smear them with margarine (not the soft kind) or butter-flavor shortening.

[jackdale]

Problem solved. Fresh eggs every day.

Meet the adorable hen sailing around the world with her best friend

http://flip.it/GyABW

Sent from my SM-T705W using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[sparrowhawk1]

It's interesting to me that Mother Earth News didn't find much difference between coating the eggs and not. but many of you have found it helps including this YouTuber. https://youtu.be/-xwYBV4WFJI

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by sparrowhawk1

It's interesting to me that Mother Earth News didn't find much difference between coating the eggs and not. but many of you have found it helps including this YouTuber. https://youtu.be/-xwYBV4WFJI

Well. Mother Nature did cover them except the 'cover' gets washed off by the egg factory further down the delivery chain.

This is why eggs from your own hens, never washed, and never cooled, keep best.

We kept fresh eggs for up to a month without any issues, in the tropics. We simply turned them over every maybe 5 days or so.

b.

[sparrowhawk1]

I completely agree that unwashed never refrigerated eggs last longest. But in Merica unless you know a farmer you're stuck with old refrigerated eggs to start out with. And you have to pay a premium for eggs that were not from stressed out chickens in cages fed soy

[30West]

Pickled? Not sure why this hasn't been mentioned already, it was invented by sailors for sailors. Perhaps not everyone's favorite way to eat them, but nutritious and I like them. There are a lot of different recipes and flavors.

[Rudderless]

In Canada, and likely the US too, the eggs you get in the store are 3-4 weeks old by the time they're delivered, so getting them from a farmer will give you fresher eggs every time.

I've done a fair bit of reading and experimenting with egg longevity with the eggs I got from my chickens and quail and I've found that they last a long, long time. Disclaimer: What I've written is just my experience with chickens and quail fed an excellent diet, kept in excellent conditions, with very healthy birds. My chickens were heritage breeds that averaged just over 5 eggs a week for over 3 years; my quail laid an egg a day, every day.

What I've found is that the easiest way to keep eggs is also as good or better than the other methods. Eggs come with a natural coating, called the bloom, that dries quickly after the egg is laid and provides a seal that keeps moisture in and air/contaminants out. When the eggs are washed, the bloom is removed and the egg is more porous.

If the eggs are clean, I've found it's best to leave them in their natural state. If they're dirty they should be eaten first and you should probably wash them or at least wipe them off if they're covered in chicken stuff. If you wash eggs, you should use water that's warmer than the egg by 15-20 degrees celcius. Cold water causes the contents to shrink, thus drawing in the contaminants through the shell, warm water does the opposite.

If the eggs are clean, you can refrigerate them or leave them at room temperature. I've kept chicken eggs for up to 6 months, in and out of the fridge, without turning, and found that the eggs at room temp did better. This is likely because the fridge has a low relative humidity, so the eggs dry out faster, causing more air to enter the egg, carrying with it whatever bacteria is floating around your fridge, but that's just my guess. After 6 months, I found that about 3/4 of the eggs left at room temp were edible. I want to point out that this isn't what I'm suggesting you do, nor is it something I do, I just wanted to see what I could get in terms of longevity.

Quail eggs are different because they're much smaller, so they have a far greater surface area/volume ratio. They dry out much quicker because of that and after 3 months I found that 3/4 were good. They are, in my mind, a far better egg than chicken eggs and many people who have egg allergies are able to eat quail eggs without issue.

So, here in Canada, I'd be fine with keeping quail eggs for 2 months and chicken eggs for 3-4 months if I had to. If you're in a hotter environment, that may reduce those numbers, but the key is to always give them the smell test before eating them. Realistically, though, I can't ever see not eating the eggs within a month or so, so it's pretty academic.

If you do want to use eggs that you're not sure of, crack them into a bowl or cup first; if they're off, you'll know immediately.

[barnakiel]

Yes. Not possible to buy fresh eggs everywhere. Easy in small rural locations, islands, etc. but a challenge or outright impossible in big towns.

When we sailed out of Panama, nearly all our fresh produce was gone in a week - not that Panama (country) does not have fresh produce. Just Panama City is as far from reality as NY or London could be. (Actually further out, as NY and London may have good organic shops).

We encountered similar challenges in Brazil too. But I was smarter by then - I skipped buying excess stores from their fridges and saved our bucks for our landfall in Martinique.

Back to the eggs, buying a hen could be the better deal now and then ... ;-)

Cheers,
b.

[HopCar]

My father talked about sealing the shells with sodium silicate, water glass, when he was in the Navy.

[NornaBiron]

I believe the difference between US and EU eggs is that we deal with the risk of salmonella differently. The US wash and refrigerate eggs to remove contaminants, the EU vaccinate hens to reduce salmonella bacteria. Hence why EU eggs do not need to be (and it is recommended that they are not) refrigerated.

[zeehag]

i found no prep or fuss needed. eggies last about 5 weeks without prep or fuss.
where ye gonna go that takes more than 5 weeks, anyway?
mexican eggs are room temp for their duration. just donot buy ones been sitting in sun.

[sparrowhawk1]

Got it. fresh unrefrigerated eggs last a long time with no attention. But in Florida I can only get refrigerated eggs that are several weeks old when you buy them. In the summer I'm lucky if they last a week unrefrigerated( not spoiled but so watery that if I have time to go to the grocery store I'll just buy more). I prefer to have only two eggs at a time maybe twice a week so doing the math you can see I throw a lot of eggs away.
the tortured chicken eggs you can buy in a six pack but the free range eggs only come in 12

[lady sophie]

I am a retired food process engineer and did some research on egg pasteurization (yes some eggs are pasteurized). The egg shell is semi-porous. Air can pass thru and carry anything on the surface (bacteria, etc.) into the egg. There is a membrane under the shell that protects the egg however this membrane is quite fragile. It gets tough when boiled and can cause a hardboiled egg to be difficult to shell. If an egg is never chilled there is little chance of anything on the surface contaminating the interior. You can wash eggs as long as the water is room temperature - not hot. When the egg is chilled the air volume inside the egg shrinks just like a balloon that gets cold, When this air volume shrinks it creates a vacuum inside the egg and will pull air and contaminates thru the fragile membrane. I think we refrigerate eggs in America because we can. In the past many other countries did not have the refrigeration capabilities that we did so never got used to refrigerating everything. I lived in China several years and eggs were delivered every morning to the market in wooden boxes and you bought stored them on the kitchen counter for many days or even weeks.

[chasmains]

On submarines we kept crates of eggs in the torpedo room. Cool and dry. They were sprayed with hot oil before crating. Kills anything on the outside that may have been left over after washing. We only did a maximum of 90 day patrols, then back into port for replenishment.