Canning Eggs?

[Funmommy]

I'm Kinda new to canning (used to help my mom with tomato sauce as a kid). I'm currently living on an acre of land pretty much in the woods. I'm leaning towards getting up a stock pile of food for long term storage.

I've found recipes for Canned Pickled Eggs and I saw something about canning hard boiled eggs in a salt brine but I can't seem to find it again. Is this even possible?

I'm going to be getting chickens soon and I'm looking for a more long term storage option for the excess eggs. Lack of cool "dry" areas in my house make other options of storage difficult. I'm figuring that I would need to pressure can them but I have no processing times or pressures to work with.
Thanks

[MHinFox]

yes pressure can them. You get much more of a shelf life (for longterm) from pickled formula is my opinion...and pretty good taste I thought.

[CanNerd]

NO you cannot safely home 'can' eggs or any other dairy product unless you want to risk poisoning yourself. Pickled eggs can only be refrigerated, not canned and not kept on the counter at room temperature.

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_06/pickled_eggs.html

[MHinFox]

Familar with their outline but been doing it for many years no ill affects.

[MHinFox]

i am an extremeist somewhat on sanitazation of equipment. formula I use came from very old formula from extention office before uga got to be such a good source site.Perhaps that is part of difference. The uga site is great refernce but they are just one of sourcesI use. They are one of few ext services any more who will even talk about canning...most aviod issue these days becaus of fear of legal issues more than anything since you cannot garentee what folks will do. Work with extention office on lots of things ours here avoids canning info as much as they can ...such a shame. Lot of older methods out thee that still do alright as well. Extention does well to always try to air on safe side...LOL even though they take a lo of info from corps these days at times. LOL most have been involved heavily with gmos while trying to hide it in background...LOL..justmy 2 cents worth. They still do fair job of helping folks with info for most part.

[MHinFox]

funmommy I dont remember where I saw the formulas out there, but used to be several floating out there to "freeze dry eggs" for long term storage in freezer. Military used to store some like that and dry powered form is another, but have not noticed them in a while. hadnt really looked at it in a while since most things i do I have formulas for these days.But might be worth looking into for you. Just thought I would mention it.

[jebrown]

The eggs were left out in the sun. That is what caused the bacteria to grow. The same thing happens with Sun Tea. The warm temperature from the sun is ideal for bacterial growth.
Boiling the egss kills most bcteria. The vinegar also helps prevent bacteria growth which is why acids are used in a lot of canning recipes.
Like any cooked food properly handling is very important.
I recently was contacted by a local home canning club for disater preparedness information. Since then I teach them about prep. and they teach me about canning. One lady has a large quantity of canned eggs.
She has been canning since she was a little girl. Started canning helping her mother and grandmother. She started in the 1930's and says no one has ever gotten sick from any of her oher family's canning. She and the other ladies all agree that strict discipline with proper methods is the key. NO one else in the club has ever had anything cause an illness.
All have had food go bad but they say that when that happens the lid bulges and sometimes breaks the seal and there is a bad odor present. Also when opening if it has an off odor it is discarded.
One lady is a retired registered dietician who used to teach canning classes and another is also registered dietician still working in the field.

[Funmommy]

Thank You all for the information :D

Like I said I'm still learning and expanding my horizons.
Sanitation is a MAJOR thing when I'm dealing with any of my foods. :)
I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to try dehydrating my own eggs at this stage. :0

but I don't see what the issue would be with pickled eggs if you poked some small
holes in the boiled eggs and processed it in a pressure canner in a vinegar brine.

I guess for now I'm just gonna wait till I get my Chickens and see what I even get.
I'm counting my eggs before they're even hatched at this point. :p

Thanks again

[MrsL]

I've been pickling eggs for years now. Hard boiled eggs are cooled, shelled, packed into jars and cold pickling vinegar poured over. Lid on, and left 3 weeks before using; mine are kept at cool room temp in the store room. No further processing rquired, and the vinegar does the preserving. Never had any ill effects or eggs go off, etc. They will stay in good condition for up to about 4 months, but we seem to get through them well before that!

[CanNerd]

MrsL, you have been lucky. You may not change your ways but you might like to read the following article about Pickled Eggs at room temperature.

http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4934a2.htm

[sbemt456]

Heres my question, when you purchase pickled eggs at the grocery, where do you find them? You will find them on the shelf, NOT in the refrigerator section. This makes me think that if a factory can do it, I can do it better.


stella

[CanNerd]

The pickled eggs in my store are found in the refrigerated section with the cheeses, luncheon meats, etc.

If you think you can do better than the million dollar equipment, testing laboratories, inspectors, etc. that factories have....go for it, but don't be surprised if you end up poisoning yourself at some point.

There are always some foods that commercial companies have the technology, equipment, and years of research, that cannot be duplicated by the homeowner.

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

As much as I LOVE eggs and wish there were a way to keep them edible for extended periods, I've not yet found that secret and have to side with CanNerd.
I wonder if some posters are remembering the days of childhood when we could buy eggs from a big jar at the gas station counter in August? Where I grew up, in MS, they were usually right beside big jars of pickles, jerky, pig body parts, Esso oil cans and road maps. Remember... this was before the FDA felt as though they had to,,, nevermind. Circa 1969?
I wonder if those delicious 'pickled' eggs weren't actually fermented? As in alcohol?
I feel a binge coming on! *;D

Edited to address Stellas question - The 'exotic' eggs that are available for purchase in a can, that I have seen, are things like Quail and Ostrich. Not eggs that we would normally put up. Canned in factories that have million-dollar machines as stated above.

[jebrown]

I have never seen pickled eggs in a refrigerator case in a grocery store. Always found them on a shelf along side the pickled pigsfeet. Both very tasty snacks
I have bought pickled eggs and left the jar that had been opened on the counter . Snagged an egg ot two every day. I have been doing this since I was a kid .
What was mised in the article is that he put the eggs in the sunlight. The sun will promote bactera growth. This is coommon with sun tea. It can promote bactera growth that can lead to several kinds of food poisoning.
It is also a good idea to avoid using sugar as sugar helps bacterial growth.
Some people use sugar when pickling eggs to counter the sharpness of the vinegar.

[MrsL]

My store room where I keep all my pickles, including the eggs is very cool, being on the north east corner of the house. In the UK, there are jars of pickled eggs sitting out in the fish and chip shops, and on pub counters for folks to help themselves.

We don't process our jams and jellies either in a hot wtaer bath, and I have found in the past that this is a bone of contentionw ith a lot of American people, but I'm not getting into that one! ;D
I'll stick to my plain old pickled eggs, thanks.

[CanNerd]

Fortunately most people have a good immune system, especially for most germs that are common in your own household, but not all people are that fortunate or just ran out of luck playing Russian Roulette.

And yes exposing something to the sunlight with accelerate the growth of those nasties, but the lack of sunlight does not mean they are not there and growing at a slower pace. Something to think about.

[Anon001]

It amazes me how long people have used pickled eggs without refrigeration... how many generations? I never recall anyone getting sick.

I also never use a hot batch for jellies or pickles. It isn't needed if the jars get a good seal and if it is poured up when hot.

People are such germaphobes that they go overboard and get crazy about everything. I prefer the tried and true over some government recommendations because they have all the testing.

As a side note... I can't stand the taste of pickled eggs. I'll eat 'em anyway except pickled. lol

[jebrown]

Paul you are so right. People have become so germophobic. Ther is a registered dietician on another forum who swears anything left out over two hours should be tossed.
In my 22 years with the
Red Cross I know of no one getting food poisoning. At service centers I have seen food left out for over fourteen hours and then eaten. Ican't tell you how many Big Mac's I have eaten that was over ten hours old. If you are really hungry the are most welcome.
Most service centers are set up in either a church or a community center. The food is donated to the service center so the Red Cross can't dictate what happens with the food.
The most feared food is chicken. Peple are so paranoid about it theat some people refuse to it it even cooked. They don't want to get Salmonella poisoning.
The media picked up a story about chicken contamination and exploited it. What most people don't know is that the study they quoted found only one contamination case in 10,000. Those numbers were not dramatic so the media decided to omit this little tidbit of information.
When people from this country travel to other countries
often they come bck shocked at food in open markets and street vendors sitting out unrefrigerated. They are so convinced that they will get food poisoning and die. People have been eating food that has not been refrigerated for thousands of years. Of course some foods do require refrigeration and some can be left out for more than two hours.
Jerry

[sbemt456]

Wonder who made the first pickled eggs? Who had the idea? Just curious.

Have a great day!

stella 8)

[MrsL]

Not sure, probably the Chinese? Anyway, I'd rather take my chances with my pickled eggs than these things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg

:o

Having read about a case of botulism and pickled eggs, the man who contracted it from them had piereced each egg before pickling. I presume this was to allow the vinegar etc to penetrate further into the eggs. Not something I do or would do, though.

[Funmommy]

Not sure, probably the Chinese? *Anyway, I'd rather take my chances with my pickled eggs than these things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg :o



Ewwwww :o :-X Not a Chance :-X

[Grizzy]

(slip'n out a couplea pickled eggs outta Stella's jar and replace'n with golfballs...) ;D


~hehehe~
:P

[bookwormom]

lol, pickled golfballs.
I have to admit I never ate a pickled egg. don't know if I missed something. You just eat them as is, or can you add them to something? like potatoe salad or the like, or on sandwiches?

[sbemt456]

So thas why muh pickled eggs are rubbery. :o (lookin aroun fer Griz)

Have a great day!

stella