Eggs into Waterglass - February 4, 2020 @goldenoakfarm

I have a family that buys a LOT of my eggs. They went on vacation during January and my hens were at top production. I tried to sell eggs via my local community but didn’t sell a lot. So I ended up with 19 dozen eggs in my fridge, some dating back to early December.

I feed the real old eggs to our elderly cat, 1 a day raw. I decided on Tuesday to put 9 dozen of the really old eggs down in waterglass for her. I have done this with fresher eggs 3 times since 2008 for various reasons and always had very good luck with it.

I only store and sell very clean eggs. The dirty ones are washed and eaten quickly. But sometimes there are tiny spots of stuff on eggs and so I planned to wipe those off, then water test the eggs.

Using cool water deep enough to cover the egg by at least ½”, place each egg in the water. Because I know these are old eggs, I plan to keep any that don’t actually float off the bottom.

This was one of the super X Large eggs so the water only just covered it. It was vertical but not floating. I only had 1 floater, from early January.

I had placed the eggs into this crock to make sure they would fit and allow 2” of waterglass above the tops. My helper friend was here and he took it up to the bathtub and washed it thoroughly with soap and hot water, then bleached it. The stamp indicates it is a 4 gallon crock.

Monday night I filled my huge stockpot and boiled the water for 10 mins. Then I set it outside, covered, in the addition to cool overnight. It takes a pot of this size many hours to cool down. I’d guess it is a 5 gallon pot, maybe larger.

I keep a good amount of sodium silicate on hand. This is also known as waterglass. I buy it from Lehmans.

I mixed up 6 batches at a time. The proportion is 11 parts water: 1 part waterglass. This cup had 66 oz water and I added 6 oz of waterglass to it. I had to make up 5 of these to fill the crock. I used the markings on the cup to measure the water, but I weighed the waterglass on a scale.

My helper friend carefully set each egg in, pointy end down. The 9 dozen fit in nicely. He then carried the crock to the root cellar, as it would have been too heavy to do with water in it.

Filling it so there was 2” of liquid above the eggs’ tops brought it to ½” from the top. Just room to put the crock cover on.

With the fresher eggs, I’ve stored eggs for up to 8 months in the root cellar. I test the eggs as I take them out. Every now and then I’d get a floater. These are eggs you do NOT want to break inside the house. The smell would be bad.

Because these are such old eggs, I’m expecting more spoilage. So as I take each dozen out I will wash the waterglass off then water test each one.

A note about waterglass: It is a sealer and starts to dry really quickly. If you get it on anything, it must be cleaned off immediately. It will not come off once it has dried. So we were careful to wipe up spills and wash off measuring things and bowls. That’s why I would wash the eggs first, then water test.

Also, waterglass eggs are good for any type cooking EXCEPT hardboiling. Because they are sealed, they will explode if hardboiled.