Raw/ uncooked eggs
Whats the best way to pack raw/uncooked eggs, for a week long hike in warm weather?
Here are some ideas...
FYI, I've never tried them myself.
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Dollar-Hen4.html
Preserving Eggs Out of Cold Storage.
Occasional articles have been printed in agricultural papers calling
attention to the fact that the cold storage men were reaping vast
profits which rightfully belonged to the farmer. Such writers advise
the farmer to send his own eggs to the storage house or to preserve
them by other means.
As a matter of fact the business of storing eggs has not of late
years been particularly profitable, there being severe losses during
several seasons; Even were the profit of egg storing many times
greater than they are the above advice would still be unwise, for
the storing, removing and selling of a small quantity of eggs would
eat up all possible profit.
The only reliable methods of preserving eggs outside of cold storage
are as follows:
Liming: Make a saturated solution of lime, to which salt may be
added, let it settle, dip off the clear liquid, put the eggs in
while fresh, keep them submerged in the liquid and keep the liquid
as cold as the available location will permit.
Water glass: This is exactly the same as liming except that the
solution used is made by mixing ten per cent. of liquid water glass
or sodium silicate with water.
Liming eggs was formerly more popular than it is to-day. There are
still two large liming plants in this country and several in Canada.
In Europe both lime and water glass are used on a more extensive
scale.
All limed or water glassed eggs can be told at a glance by an
experienced candler. They pop open when boiled. When properly
preserved they are as well or better flavored than storage stock,
but the farmer or poultryman will make frequent mistakes and thus
throw lots of positively bad eggs on the market. These eggs must be
sold at a low price themselves, and by their presence cast suspicion
on all eggs, thus tending to suppress the price paid to the
producers. The farmers' efforts to preserve eggs has in this way
acted as a boomerang, and have in the long run caused more loss than
gain to the producers.
====================================
More info on liming eggs:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Qzp..._aEbhkKs&hl=en
Special plastic containers are available, but I just keep them in the original cartons and place them in a part of my pack where they are subject to minimal bumps and bangs. Nature produced eggs to withstand far more than a week of warm weather. They won't spoil. Just carry and eat.Originally Posted by CBSSTony
When I was growing up, eggs were stacked unrefrigerated on store shelves. Fresh eggs will last for weeks without being refrigerated. Any egg you buy from a refrigerated case is good for a week or 10 days, at least, with no special preservation techniques. Most of the techniques you read about on White Blaze shorten storage, rather than lengthen it.
Weary
Living in Thailand where the average daily temps usually hit 90, I've never seen eggs refrigerated in a store or a home. My wife will not put them in the refrigerator. She thinks i'm crazy for suggesting it.
Inside a chicken?
"I too am not a bit untamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." - W. W.
obligatory website link
What Weary said about spoilage and the plastic cartons work better than the ones from the store IME.
Thanks for the input, my grandparents had a farm with chickens, and now that you mention it. I seem to remember they stored them in cartons out of the sun. I also thought about hiking with a chicken for fresh eggs then fresh chicken towards the end of the hike.
The best way to preserve eggs...
Or, the egg yolks, anyway, is on the insides of your arteries. They'll stay there, unchanged, for a lifetime.
http://www.rei.com/product/696008
Sailors coat eggs in lard and carry them for a month, unrefrigerated, while sailing across the atlantic in or near the tropics.
A bad egg stinks, no chance of missing it. (hence, the term "rotten egg" for a bad thing)
miles of smiles
Tom
Personally, I wouldn't carry raw eggs on a backpacking trip.
But if for some reason I had to, I believe I'd crack em at home and carry them in a nalgene.
That avoids the possibility of messy spills in your pack, but hastens spoilage of the eggs. The unbroken shell is nature's natural egg preservative.
Weary
I have tried the nalgene bottle for over night trips. I just didn't like to drink out of it after I cleaned it well. I could have boiled water I suppose, but it was a no stove hike. We cooked over an open flame. I thought about wrapping bubble wrap around them with duct tape. My chicken was reading over my shoulder and read the post about me taking my chicken. Now she won't come with me even if its foul weather.
You could whip up a BPA omelette.
"Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
Call for his whisky
He can call for his tea
Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan
Whiteblaze.net User Agreement.
I think there is a post here on wb or over on HF on the shelf life of eggs at room temperture. I recall the longest lasting eggs (over 45 days) were treated in the water glass. For shorter term storage IE 14 days, people seemed to have decent success rubbing petrolatum over the eggs (vaseline). Basically the eggshell is a permeable membrane, and the waterglass or the vaseline blocks the pores in the eggshell.
An egg needs to be incubated for 21 days to produce a chick. A mother hen typically produces 9-12 eggs before starting incubation. That means eggs evolved to stay viable for at least 33 days in order to produce chicks.
That means you can carry fresh eggs at least between two and three weeks without the eggs spoiling. In the real world you can probable double that time span, but no sensible backpacker needs to keep eggs fresh more than a week.
Back when I was raising three kids on a marginal salary, I would commonly buy 10 dozen eggs when they were on a bargain sale and keep them on a shelf in a 65 degree back hall way. I never once had an egg spoil on me.
Weary
Yep.
If you have a local farmers market, or amish market you can find some really good fresh eggs there. Do not fridge them. They will last for a week just fine.
I dip them in boiling water for 3-to-5 seconds. It "cooks" a thin layer of the insides up against the shell, sealing all the tiny cracks and air holes.
It's the same theory as the Vaseline, just not as messy. They're supposed to last up to 21 days, if I recall.
I take them on section hikes and have fresh eggs for a real breakfast. Much better than instant oatmeal.
Have yet to have one crack in my pack, too.
RainMan
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[I]ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: ... Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit....[/I]. Numbers 35
[url]www.MeetUp.com/NashvilleBackpacker[/url]
.
OK folks, just like others said, farm fresh eggs will not spoil in average tmeps for a long long time. I raise laying chickens here at home. Thing is a farm fresh egg has a coating on the outside of the egg that basically seals the inside of the egg from the atmosphere for quite a long time. So long as you do not wash them, I have seen eggs last 60 days and still be good; UNREFRIGERATED! Now, you cannot do that with store bought eggs mind you because they have been washed and nature's coating removed.
Another bonus and thread hijack is this. Farm raised, free range, non caged brown eggs are by far 100 times better than the store bought eggs. And if ya really want to add some tastiness and nutrition to them, get ya a rooster and collect those fertile eggs to eat. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm!!
In the BSA we'd just coat the eggs in vaseline, it's amazing but we discovered air/oxygen ruined eggs. If we had no weight issues, and had a later use for a jar, we'd just break open alot of eggs and pour them on each other. When you pout them out the yolks pretty much stay with the albument. That's a big word for a 12 year old.
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