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Good to know. I had always heard 18 months, but if it can go longer that means there is a large "margin of error".

That's what got me started with water glassing in the first place. It just felt odd to be buying eggs during that first winter when I produced better quality ones.

18 months is definitely within the quoted times for water-glassed eggs. I save spring-summer eggs for use over the winter, so I haven't personally gone over 8 months. It can happen. Do the best you can to not jostle the container and be careful when you place eggs in the container to minimize...

@igorsMistress - That is certainly a different path. Please report your results- positive or negative so that we can learn. Thanks.

Voice of experience: Water-glassed eggs can (theoretically) be used just like fresh eggs. However, their structure weakens a little bit and the contents become somewhat softer. So, in practice a percentage of hard boiled eggs will crack and a smaller percentage will actually leak a...

Frankly, I don't know either. I keep mine in a 2 gallon bucket. Minimizing jostling is the key to minimizing cracked/broken/bad eggs. Since I eat mine over the winter and they can last for 18 months, the bottom ones being in there 2-3 months longer than the top ones isn't a problem.

I don't know if the hydrated lime is safe for chickens to eat directly. I do know that it is is fine in your compost as one of it's uses is as gardening/horticultural lime. Because of that, I play it safe and give fresh egg shells back to the chickens and put water-glassed shells into the...

Humans have evolved a very good way to test for fresh/usable food- our senses. If it smells good, looks good and tastes good, then it is fine to eat. Water glassing has been used since the 1800s, so it was around long before modern refrigeration.

Personally- about 8 months. I've been capturing eggs from the spring flush and saving them for the winter. It felt really odd after my first year of raising chickens to be buying eggs at the store in the winter, so I looked for a preservation method after that first year and have been using...

Make sure you put on an Oscar-winning performance of dying in front of him after eating the eggs. ;)

Yup. That is the standard mixture. You'll get some of the lime settling out, but that is normal. As for reuse, I don't know one way or another if it is okay. It probably is okay, but the lime is quite cheap, so I haven't wanted to risk an entire winters worth of eggs to test it. I just...

^This. It doesn't take anything fancy. This preservation technique was developed before electricity, so anywhere dark and out of the way is fine. In a closet or in a bucket in the corner are fine. Sounds like you handled it great. I'm in my 4th year of using this technique. I've been...

Your experience matches mine. The eggs are a little weaker than fresh. So, they don't work for things that require more structure like hard boiled or sunny-side up or easy over eggs. They generally are best for scrambled eggs or mixed into cooked foods.

If you want, you can actually do it on a smaller scale. That will allow you to get used to the process and to become more confident that it works well.

I certainly wouldn't criticize using such tools, particularly if you've experienced any sensitivity to the lime water. In my case, I use a nylon glove most of the time and sometimes go bare-handed and wash immediately afterwards without ill effect. My reasoning is that the 10% loss rate...

Personally, I prefer to use my bare hand or a rubber glove. Since this is a moderately delicate process, you can't beat using your sense of touch when placing eggs into the container to avoid those cracked eggs. Just part of going from 10% --> 5% loss rate. As far as one bad egg spoiling the...

I'm now in my 4th year of water glassing. I've never had an egg break that badly, but my first two years, I did have eggs what cracked and leaked egg whites into the water. I didn't find out about that until I started using the eggs and saw a mess in that area of the bucket. Although the...

I've been doing this for three years now. It works quite well. I can see why it was used a long time ago as it required no refrigeration and has a high success rate. I stand by my summary from last year, though I am more careful and lose fewer eggs to cracking now:

Hello Roxanne. Sorry about your problem. I'd try cracking open a couple of eggs. See if they look okay, smell okay and if they do, try scrambling and eating. If they check out, then move them to a new container. Water glass eggs do become a little softer than fresh eggs- the whites are...

The water gives them a certain amount of buoyancy compared to air, so a limited amount of rolling around is normal. This description sounds much better than what the first one sounded like. In fact, the float test is a well known way to check for fresh eggs. If you find a clutch of eggs that...