Preserving Eggs With No Refrigeration

By jeff on February 7, 2014in Canning & Preserving, Food, Food Storage, Homestead, Organic Food Storage, Self-Reliance, Storage, Wise Food Storage

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Preserving Eggs – No Refrigeration Required

Do you remember the joy of finding Easter Eggs when you were young? Have you ever had the “joy” of finding an Easter Egg several months after Easter has passed? It has such a strong and distinctive smell that as soon as someone says, “It smells like rotten eggs”, everyone knows immediately what that smell is. We here in America store our eggs in the refrigerator to keep them as long as possible. Storing eggs in a refrigerator is a fairly recent development and in many parts of the world today, eggs are stored at room temperature. The Old Foodie discusses several ways that our ancestors used to preserve eggs. I will briefly mention all of them but I will focus on what I think is the easiest way for preserving eggs without refrigeration.
Some of the more popular ways to preserve eggs in the past are immersing them in a lime solution, burying them in salt, pickling them, dipping them in sulphuric acid or boiling them in boric acid. These methods altered the taste and the texture of the eggs and if you’re anything like me you don’t keep sulphuric acid lying around the house. Boiling things in boric acid sounds like you need to be wearing a lab coat and laughing maniacally while spooky music plays in the background. So I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t want to preserve your eggs this way.
The simplest way to preserve eggs today can be done with an easily obtainable material: mineral oil. The reason that eggs spoil is that oxygen and bacteria passes through the shell. By coating it the shell with mineral oil, the shell is sealed off.
What you need is to warm a quarter cup of mineral oil (just put it in the microwave for 10 seconds), put on some gloves and coat the entire egg with oil. It doesn’t matter how thick you apply it, just be sure that the whole surface of the shell is covered. Now the egg is ready for storage. Place the egg pointy side down and store it in a dark and cool place (around 68 degrees). Flip the eggs once a month to maintain the integrity of the yolk and the eggs will keep for 6-9 months.
Pretty simple, isn’t it? But if you really feel like you need to get your mad scientist on, then by all means get your lab coat and start a vat of boric acid boiling.
Have you ever preserved eggs? What has worked for you? Share your methods with us!
Sources: http://www.preparednesspro.com/safely-preserving-eggs#7r33y0pgp8gbiV6m.99
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/04/preserving-eggs-otherwayes.html