Veteran cruiser Lin Pardey shares five ways to keep eggs fresh without refrigeration.
Links:
Storing Food without Refrigeration
Care and Feeding of the Sailing Crew
Sodium Silicate (waterglass)
Pardey Offshore Sailing Video Series
Prefer to read? Transcript below.
Five Ways to Store Eggs without Refrigeration
Every cruising cookbook will mention some way of preserving eggs on long voyages. I’ve personally heard of five basic ones; the choice depends on your pattern of thinking.
- Grease each egg carefully and thoroughly with Vaseline.
- Paint each egg with sodium silicate (water glass).
- Boil each egg 10 seconds.
- Deep-freeze the eggs.
- Turn over the eggs every two or three days.
The first three methods are slightly messy and consume time when you are busiest—preparing to leave port. Greasing must be done carefully, as any void in the coating will allow the eggs to rot. Overboiling will cook the eggs so they are not good for cakes or baking, and you won’t find this out until you actually break open an egg you are about to use. These methods require no extra maintenance once you are at sea other than removing the Vaseline if you choose method 1. Neither Vaseline nor sodium silicate is dangerous to your health if a small amount should get into your food while you are breaking an egg.
Freezing works, and that is how eggs are kept in many countries where they must be imported. You can tell an egg has been frozen if it has a pale yellow yolk. If your freezer fails and the eggs even begin to defrost, they’ll start going bad in five or six days.
Turning the eggs is the method I always choose. All I have to do before we leave port is store away the eggs in regular egg cartons. Then at sea, it’s necessary to remember to turn over each carton three times a week. There is a chance of failure with this method. If the eggs aren’t turned over because you forget, or because you are too seasick, they’ll start to deteriorate. If they sit for a week without turning, they’ll start to go bad after 25 days or so.
The reason all these methods work is that they keep air from entering the semiporous eggshell. When an egg is absolutely fresh, its shell is well coated inside by the clear egg fluid, and air can’t get through. As it ages, the shell dries out inside where the air space sits, and then the shell becomes more porous. Vaseline and sodium silicate add an airtight barrier to the outside of the egg. A 10-second boil adds an internal barrier. Turning the eggs works the same way—it keeps the whole inside of the shell moist.
Whichever method you choose, buy the freshest eggs you can find—ones that have never been refrigerated or kept in an air-conditioned room. Two- or 3-day-old eggs tend to have lumpy shells that are absolutely opaque. After five or six days of storage, even in refrigeration, the shells start to develop small, slightly gray spots that are easily visible if you hold the egg up to a strong light. Supermarket eggs are a poor choice: (1) these are usually bought from a central egg distributor and are at least three days old when they reach the store, and (2) they are almost always transported in air-conditioned trucks. This is vitally important. A 20-degree increase in temperature will drastically affect the keeping quality of eggs. If you are sailing from a cold climate such as England, New England, or Canada, bound for the tropics, your eggs won’t last much longer than 25 days. So buy just enough to last until you reach warmer waters, such as in Spain, Bermuda, Hawaii, or Mexico. Then buy your egg supply. Going the other way, there is no problem.
I have seen little difference in longevity between free range or cage kept chicken eggs; nor has shell color seemed to make much difference. It is freshness that counts. When we left Ventura bound for the Line Islands just a few years ago, I purchased 10 dozen eggs from a young farmer. She arrived with multicolored eggs; green, beige, baby blue shells. They’d been laid that day, tasted great and lasted very well.
Don’t wash your eggs before you store them away. They have a natural protective covering, and it’s water-soluble. Even if they have bits of barnyard soiling, just brush them lightly with a dry cloth before storing them away.
Store your eggs in the coolest part of the boat, somewhere below the waterline if possible and close to the hull but away from the heat of the engine. Water temperature in the tropics rarely gets above 76 degrees, and eggs keep naturally at this temperature; with no preserving methods at all, they will last nicely for two or three weeks.
No matter how you keep your eggs, they will change slightly as they age. After 12 to 25 days (depending on the temperature of your storage locker), the yolks will become fragile, and making sunny-side-up eggs will be a challenge. After 25 to 30 days, the eggs will only be good for scrambling, boiling, or baking. After 30 days, the whites of hard-boiled eggs may have a slightly yellow or brown tinge and the yolks will be pale in color. This doesn’t change the eggs’ cooking value, nor does it affect the flavor. But if the egg is cracked, or has a dark appearance right through the shell, I wouldn’t use it. After you’ve kept eggs 15 days, I’d also suggest breaking each egg separately into a cup so that a bad egg won’t spoil a whole cake mix or a 10-egg omelet.
The longest I’ve had eggs last by turning them over three times a week is three months. Then I ran out of eggs. Out of the 144 eggs I’d started with, only five went bad—the first one 25 days out, the second after 45 days. But either of these eggs could have had a small crack in its shell.
Don’t throw away egg cartons. They might not be available in the next country you visit. Save any Styrofoam ones you get; they’ll last better than pressed paper ones and can be washed if necessary. Pressed-paper egg containers also seem to promote mold on the eggshells. In Mexico, the Mediterranean, and the Far East, you can buy plastic egg carriers in 1-dozen and 2-dozen sizes. These are great. They’re sturdier than Styrofoam, have a good carrying handle, and are quite crush-resistant. I still have one I bought in Mexico nine years ago.
As for quantity, I take as many eggs as I have room for. Eggs are a real bargain worldwide. A dozen of them cost less than one 12-ounce can of corned beef, yet they can be a main course for five or six people. I figure on a minimum of two eggs a person per day on real long passages, one and a half a day on 1,000-mile voyages. When most of your other perishables are an ancient memory and cans are the reality, eggs in all forms still taste fresh—eggs and egg salads, deviled eggs, omelets, custards, soufflés, cookies.
For our voyage south from Virginia and then around Cape Horn, I wanted provisions to last for up to 60 days at sea. I purchased small packets of powdered whole eggs from a camping supply store. They have since become a staple on board—not a substitute for fresh eggs, but a supplement. They are easier to handle than fresh eggs for baking projects—i.e., just add tablespoon of egg powder and ¼ cup of water to any recipe calling for a whole egg. They make fine scrambled eggs if you add a few drops of vinegar to the recommended mix plus some fresh or dried parsley, then beat well with a whisk before cooking. One caveat: The soft paper and foil packets are susceptible to leakage, so I store my spares in Ziploc bags until I need them. With powdered eggs on board, I can reduce my fresh egg supply by about a third.
Carol Dean says
I buy eggs that have not been refrigerated and leave then in a cupboard and then turn them over every week. They last for close to six weeks that way. I use the plastic eggs cartons. They can be purchased in most sporting good stores in the US.
john stoffel says
Besides loving Lin’s voice in her books, I love her oral voice on he podcast.
Tatiana says
Thank you!