So I can fit 100 eggs into a gallon bag. If they are dehydrated and powdered first! I follow the Dirty Gourmet’s instructions on dehydrating eggs, which works really well. Now to start a new bag and see if I can store enough to make it through the next molt and winter without buying eggs.
Powdered eggs is going to be my go-to method of long term egg storage! My hens are laying up a storm, and I finally had an excess of eggs to try dehydrating eggs. I followed the Dirty Gourmet’s instructions (here). I hand whisked the eggs until they were slightly foamy. Five 50g eggs fit in each of my fruit leather trays (I did two trays), just like hers did. I dehydrated at 140 degrees for 10 hours, then removed all the dry bits, but had to flip over a section on each tray and dry another couple hours. At this point it was bedtime, so I put all the bits in a gallon freezer bag in the freezer. In the morning I put all 10 dehydrated eggs in my food processor and blended until it was a coarse powder.
I weighed the resulting powder and figured that each egg was reduced to 12 g. The Dirty Gourmet recommends reconstituting with 1 Tablespoon and one teaspoon of water. I tried that, but the eggs were still quite thick. I weighed an egg shell (7 g) and taking the weight of the whole egg (50 g), figured that 31 g of water was lost for each egg (that is 2 Tablespoons). I used this ratio to rehydrate 3 eggs worth of powder and made two batches of pancakes, one with fresh eggs, and one with the powdered eggs. Both mixed and cooked up fine, and my family said they couldn’t taste a difference. I think the powdered eggs made a slightly finer textured pancake. The best part is that I think I can probably store 50 dehydrated eggs in a single gallon bag. I am storing the powder in the freezer as recommended, but the space savings is considerable! I think I can also comfortably process 15 eggs at a go. Maybe I won’t have to buy eggs next winter. Maybe.
We found another shell-less egg in a nest box. My youngest was helping so I held the fragile egg and a normal egg up to the light, and she took a picture, because it was neat to see the transparency of the odd egg. I say the egg was shell-less, but it did have a very thin layer of hardened material, then a thick membrane. Touching it caused a dent, but then gently rolling it in my fingers didn’t break the egg and made it look more like a fluid-filled latex balloon. I weighed it and recorded it in the book, then we gave it to the dogs. Griffin was quite surprised when he picked up the egg and left most of it behind! Missy didn’t mind cleaning up.
Every once in awhile we get a particularly nice colored egg. Sometimes they have well distributed dark spots, but this one was the first I’ve seen with white spots pleasingly spread across the surface. As the hens get back into the groove of laying, the colors even out, but this was a fun find.
Found an egg! Hurray! It has been almost exactly four months since we’ve had an egg laid in our coop. I was optimistic when I saw Magic do her squat a couple weeks ago. She may be the one who produced this egg! This summer when they are in full production I am definitely going to try some more egg preservation methods.
Critters and Craft 