Preserving eggs: Part 3 Storing on the shelf

You can preserve your eggs long-term. All you have to is get warm some mineral oil (Mineral oil is found in the pharmaceutical sections along with Pepto Bismal, laxatives, etc. ) about 10 seconds for a quarter cup. Take your eggs out of the carton rub the warmed mineral oil over the eggs ( make sure the egg is completely covered don’t worry how thick or thin as long as the whole egg is covered and place back in the carton small end pointed down. A quarter cup of mineral oil should cover 4 to 6 dozen eggs.

Store your eggs in a cool dry place, you want the temperature to be about 68 degrees for long term storage. This method will allow your eggs to stay good for 9 months and sometimes as much as 12. You need to flip your eggs once a month, just flip the carton upside down gently so as not to break any of the eggs this helps maintain the integrity of the yolk. You can store them like this at room temperature for a few weeks.

Don’t worry about the eggs going bad and you not knowing, rotten eggs smell horrible. An other way to see if they are bad is to put them in cold water ( at least double the depth as the length of the egg) anything not floating is a good egg

Don’t be put off by the other things that you might see in your egg. Some things may look odd to you, but don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with your egg when you see the little red spots in the yolk. Those spots (usually referred to as meat spots) just mean that a blood vessel ruptured during the formation of the egg. They are diluted as the egg gets older, which means that if you actually see them, your eggs are still quite fresh. Another misinterpreted egg issue is when you see a white strand (chalazae) in the egg white, usually right next to the yolk. It reminds me of a white umbilical cord. They are only there to keep the egg yolk centered and are sometimes more obvious in some eggs than others. Even if you see an egg white that is cloudy or has a yellow or green hue to it, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. In fact, quite the opposite because it indicates that the carbon dioxide just hasn’t had enough time to escape the egg. Even if you end up with a fertilized egg, it’s still safe to eat.
This way of egg preservation is only for eggs you intend to cook before eating.

Yes, you can do this method on grocery store eggs. The grocery store egg distributors make sure to wash off the bloom and then refrigerate them. Your mineral oil essentially reapplies the bloom. Of course always look at the dates on the egg cartons and get them as “new” as possible. Obviously, rotating through your eggs is standard, If store bought or from your own chickens You can number or alphabetize the eggs so that you can keep the egg cartons together in batches if you purchased them from the store. That way if there ever is a problem with a group of eggs, you know where they came from and can look at all of the eggs that you bought in that particular batch.