Where can I buy sodium metasilicate for preserving eggs?

milliemonster

Well, I have 17 chickens:rolleyes: and they are just starting to lay again, towards the end of last year I was giving eggs away as we had so many and as they have stopped laying over the winter, I have had to buy eggs:eek:

Today I watched wartime kitchen following a thread on here and saw that they could preserve eggs for up to a year in water glass (sodium metasilicate), I never knew this!!! I have soooooooooo much to learn lol!!!

Can anyone tell me where I can buy this? as I just know I am going to be inundated with eggs very soon (my ducks are laying now aswell!!!) and it would be great to preserve them

Ches

Milliemonster try looking for Isinglass. I think thats the name it used to be sold under.

jrrowleyws

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1Kg-Sodium-Metasilicate-Metso-Laboratory-Grade_W0QQitemZ230315371046QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_BOI_Medical_Lab_Equipment_Lab_Supplies_ET?hash=item359fddaa26

But its only lab grade. Doesnt seem to be easily available. I'd read up on it, might not be a great thing to be using.

Ches

I looked it up on google and I think its something that we wouldn't want to use these days as eggs are porous. Surely you can frreze eggs can't you? I seem to remember you have to beat them and put salt in the ones you want to use for savoury dishes and sugar in the ones you want to use for sweet dishes.

tessasmum

Freezing them is one option, and the other is long-term refrigeration. There is a report of an experiment somewhere (sorry, can't remember where now) where eggs were kept in various different ways, and I am sure it said that the ones kept in the fridge achieved a higher proportion of usable eggs at the end of the experiment, which went on for quite some time. I have your problem too when my chickens are in full production - up to 25 eggs a day last spring and summer - so I understand. I just got myself some regular customers (friends and family) and put the money towards the feed so that I don't feel so hard done by at this time of year when I am having to buy eggs as well as feed! Good luck anyway.

Rachel021967

I found this article through Wikipedia about storing eggs. Looks quite old but may be of some help
https://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-farming/1977-11-01/Fresh-Eggs.aspx

meanmarie

Remember that my godmother, who turned 100 last year, used to preserve eggs in water glass or isinglass when they were cheap to buy....doesn't seem to have done her any harm.

Marie

tessasmum

Yes - that's the article - thanks for finding that. Had forgotten that the experiment lasted seven months, though - that's quite some time to keep eggs.

Old_Joe

I looked it up on google and I think its something that we wouldn't want to use these days as eggs are porous.

Nonsense. When I was in a home during the war the cook used to preserve dozens of them at a time in Isinglass and I'm still here nearly seventy years later to tell the tale.

thriftlady_2

You could always pickle them;)

charliee_3

just reading about it, it works by blocking the pores in the egg to make it airtight. i wonder if you put them in one of those vacuum bags somehow it woudl help keep them longer without the potential toxins?

on a more surprising note i found this site https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com and on thir page about eggs it says you shouldnt use eggs after their best before date.. whilst further down the page it has the tip for checking the freshness of eggs???? here (click on 'best before')

madness.. what rot.. so on a 'save waste' site they are telling us to throw away perfectly good eggs without a second thought.. marvellous..