Another dehydrating success!
If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that for years I have “water limed” my eggs for winter storage. I have tried many other forms of storage, but water liming is by far, my favorite. They last for a long time, and I can fit quite a few in a 5-gallon bucket. Here is a link to a blog I did on how to do water liming. https://www.goshenacres.com/post/storing-eggs
It’s time for last fall’s harvest to be used up, as fresh will need to go in. The last few years I have stored 2 -5-gallon buckets of eggs for the winter. We usually only go through about 1 bucket, but I do extra because you never know what winter may bring.
The only thing that happens to the eggs after months and even after a year of storage, is that the yolk tends to get softer. This means that usually when you break the egg the yolk is already broke, no sunny side up. Even at this point, you still can’t tell the difference between this, and a fresh egg in taste. Because I know that the yolks tend to get soft after about 6 months of storage, I tend to use these for scrambled eggs, baking or egg salad knowing that the yolk will already be broke. I usually dump the unused eggs that are left from the fall. Why?....because I can easily put in fresh and start saving all over again. In the spring, the eggs start coming and it’s hard to keep up with using them. This makes it easy to use some and store some for winter. As I brought this unopened bucket up from the winter to dump on the compost pile. I was thinking “what a waste. There is nothing wrong with them.” I just have fresh and will start with fresh to go into winter. This made me put my thinking cap on.
I have been reading a lot about dehydrating eggs and up until now it’s never been a preferred way of storage because I have fresh either stored or from the coop, But now we have to start thinking long-term. So, this spawned me onto my next dehydrating project! Dehydrating eggs!
So, the other morning before I went out to start on all of the projects outside, I took my bucket and cracked all of the eggs, whizzed them up in a blender and poured them on my jelly sheets in my dehydrator. It took about 24 hours and at 135°. When the egg is completely dried. let it cool and then remove it from the sheet and in SMALL batches, powder it in a dry container for your blender.
Can you believe that these 2 1/2-quart jars Hold about seven dozen eggs?! Now I have dehydrated eggs to use in my mixes or scrambled eggs and I never had to throw any of the eggs out that were still good from last year! These would also be great for camping! These will be great In the jar pre-made baking mixes that I have been sharing with you. They also reconstitute amazing, to where you don’t even know that they were a dehydrated product.
To rehydrate, 1 tablespoon of powder mixed with 2 tablespoons of hot water will reconstitute to about one egg. I let the powder and water sit together really blended in to rehydrate and then poured into my frying pan and cooked as a scrambled egg. Kenny said you couldn’t even tell the difference in the taste or even the look. I’d say it was a success all the way around!
