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Water glassing is an age-old egg preservation method that allows you to preserve eggs for 12-18 months. This tactic applies to eggs cultivated in your backyard or on a farm, not store-bought eggs. This process helps keep your eggs longer than they would on the counter or in the refrigerator.
Since springtime is often when many chickens go crazy with laying eggs, this often results in a surplus of eggs—the warmer temperatures and increased daylight help to ramp up production.
The process for water-glassing eggs is simple but relies on a few key steps that will lead to success. Here, we’ll discuss the steps needed to water glass eggs.
What is water glassing?
Water glassing is a method of preserving eggs that has been around for a long time, dating back to the 1800s. Essentially, you are submerging fresh eggs in a water and pickling lime solution.
Normally, this process is expected to keep eggs fresh for 12-18 months – sometimes up to 2 years. The eggs are kept in a cool space, much like any preserved food, and you can grab what you need throughout the year.
Water glassing uses pickling lime, a white chemical powder used in older pickle recipes. Pickling lime adds a certain crispness to the finished product by introducing calcium into the pectin of the food to be pickled.
Supplies for Water Glassing Eggs
- A 5-gallon food grade bucket with a lid
- Pickling lime
- Clean water–if your water is high in minerals or chlorinated, you would want to consider purchasing distilled water
- Food Scale
- Fresh Eggs
How to Water Glass Eggs
Step 1: Choose your eggs
When selecting eggs for water glassing, you must ensure they are unwashed and fresh. Washed eggs will not work because the protective layer (the bloom) has been removed from the egg.
You also need to be sure only to use clean eggs. We had a particularly rainy week, and you can see how messy some of my eggs are.
Step 2: Make the lime water
The rule of thumb for water glassing is one ounce of pickling lime for every quart of water. Start by putting 3 quarts of water and 3 ounces of pickling lime into the 5 gallon bucket. Whisk until the lime is dissolved.
Step 3: Add the eggs to the pickling water
Gently start placing the eggs into the bucket. You can put as few or as many as you like–if you don’t have many but intend to preserve more, you can always add them to the bucket later. My estimate that I put into my bucket is 14 dozen.
Step 4: Add more pickling water as needed
After adding the desired number of eggs, continue mixing the water and lime and covering them until they are completely submerged.
I added more than I needed to submerge the eggs in case I needed to add more later. I used 9 quarts of water and 9 ounces of lime.
