Washing Eggs

Alright...so up until about 3 weeks ago, I was only getting about 2 to 3 eggs a day. With a family of 6 that means eggs never stuck around very long and were usually eaten within a couple days of collecting them. Now we are starting to get upwards of a dozen a day with more beginning to lay every day. At some point in the very near future I will be selling eggs to friends and giving to family.

So here is my question. What do you as far as cleaning eggs when you do get a dirty one? I have been reading, and researching, and reading some more about this topic; with much diversity I see as far as cleaning eggs. Some wash with warm water (warmer than the eggs); some wash and then dip in bleach water; some simply sand them clean; and some don't clean them at all if they look clean. Phewf! Seems to be much debate as far as the proper way to handle dirty eggs! So far, 9 times out of 10 my eggs are clean when I collect them but I do get the odd dirty one, and I am sure I won't always be lucky enough to have such nice clean eggs.

So! Tell me how you all handle the dirty egg dilemma. I am eggstatic to hear your thoughts on the subject

You are going to get LOTS of opinions about this.

I don't like to was my eggs, I prefer to preserve the natural bloom. Because of this dirty eggs get cooked and fed to the dogs or back to the chooks.

Some of the info you've read on washing eggs sounds like advice for incubating and not just for eating. I know some folks sand eggs that are soiled when incubating (like myself if they are from my chickens) if they don't believe in washing for incubating but can't imagine them sanding manure off in preparation to eat.

For eating mind you, I examine every egg closely and wash all eggs in running hot water under the tap (as hot as I can stand) - from no-soiled to heavily soiled. If medium to heavily soiled I wash and give to dogs. I keep my nest boxes as poop free as possible, so only occasionally get soiled ones.

When I would babysit my mom's layers, I would wash any dirty eggs with just warm water, then use a nail brush (available from Lee Valley) to gently scrub off the grubby bits. They don't harm the eggs in any way. If the eggs looked clean, I didn't do anything else to them.

If this link works, it will take you to the nail brushes - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - otherwise just do a search for nail brushes at leevalley.com - they are handy to have around for all kinds of uses!

I submerge my eggs in a bowl of hot water. Let them sit a moment. This loosens dirt but also gives me the chance to watch for rising bubbles. Rising bubbles means there is a break/crack in the egg. With my over 40 eyes I can no longer trust myself to notice fine fractures in the shell. BUt if the shell and membrane have been ruptured, there will be a telltale trail of bubbles to the surface of the water. For me, submerging eggs in hot water is a safety check.

Now..some eggs have a pourous shell and make bubbles anyway, not every bubble trail means a break. You will learn how to tell the difference. I often will keep a surface cracked egg for my own use, but I NEVER pass one to an egg customer! 'For sale' eggs are not dusty, do not have feathers stuck to them, are not stained, cracked or muddy. But for my own use...I relax these rules a little. But any egg that has a poop glob on it that has stained the shell when it's washed off, that goes to the dog. By the time poop juice can penetrate and stain a shell, I don't want to know if it has also penetrated the internal membrane. To the dog.

I leave the natural bloom until we need to use them. Then I will submerge them in a container of warm soapy water (warmed than the egg causes the inside to expand, water cooler than the egg and the inside contracts possibly drawing in bacteria from the shell surface - or so I've read).

Also being submerged allows me to check for problem eggs (as Uno said). Sometimes my birds manage to hide them from me for a time and bad/extremely old eggs will float.

Oh thankin' my lucky stars that I rarely get a messy egg up here in our new life. But ya, of course, happens all the time. Wondering, chickens must take a massive poo or something to get rid of all fecal material before they go into the nest box to begin that trance like state of laying the egg. Boy, some of them sure do take their time. Now and then I need that egg, the one that is still within the body of the gal and I wait and I wait and I wait....sometimes give up and just am short one, smiling. Happens especially when I am going to the coast to bring eggs to my family. My chickens have gone from 2 eggs a day to 11 in a few days. Got a topic for that coming. Right, the query, wandered and strayed, such is life, such is my way, whoop, whoop, CynthiaM style.

Ya, always wash the eggs that I am giving away. Never wash ours, don't need to really. But I like to take the eggs that I give away and give them a rise. I have a rectangular plastic pan that fits nicely in my sink. I put the eggs into the plastic container, in the drain tray I have a cool strainer. I make the water warm to my touch. I dribble the water over each egg and that is only a dribble. I have a little sock on my right hand and I gently wipe each egg, ever so lightly, and put that egg into the cool strainer. I try to sit the eggs in that cool strainer with the pointy side down, the water drips off easier this way. When after I am done washing, I immediately take each egg and pick up and take a clean drying cloth and put them onto my stove, which has a rack on it cause it is gas. The stove rack has a towel on it. The eggs fit nicely into each grove on the rack and they stay there for a few minutes to finish air drying and then I pack the eggs. Even though the eggs look clean, for giving away or selling I do like to have the warm water dribble over them. Get a gander at the pictures, they depict what I do in my kitchen. Clean eggs are a beautiful sight to see. Have a most wonderful day, CynthiaM.

These pictures were taken before we moved up to the Okanagan two years ago, my old kitchen, but the same idea is carried forth here. The eggs back on the coast were somewhat more dirty than up here, I think it is because of the area on the coast being so wet, here so dry, drier chicken butts, smiling, not muddy chicken butts.

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We are going to start selling some of our eggs soon and I have been pondering this myself.

My question is... has anyone tried the egg washing baskets that include egg soap? We have them at our feed store and I have thought about trying it for the eggs we intend to sell. Is it really a safer method? Is it one of those things you can buy but don't really need? Is this soap magical?

Maybe not if no one has mentioned it

I use the egg wash detergent but not the fancy automated egg washer. The detergent does lift anything stuck on the egg very well., much better than plain water and no need to scrub. So I put detergent and hot water in the sink, emerse the eggs for about 30 seconds to a minute and then rinse them in hot water and lay them on a tea-towel to dry, like CynthiaM's photos. You do need to rinse off that detergent. Water must be hotter than the egg as Fowler said.

I don't wash the eggs until close to when I need them, I think they stay fresher with the natural bloom on.

Okay..here's a question.

SOme of us feel that the natural bloom is a way to keep the egg preserved and fresher longer.

On the other end of the specturm we have people washing with not just water, but soap as well. Special soap. I question the specialness of said soap beyond some manufacturer's advertising claim. I think I need the commonness or specialness of soap defined for me, but that's another post.

Here's my thought on this and I encourage you to ponder. I think the natural coating has some ability to remain on the egg if the egg is only submerged in warm water and maybe gently rubbed with a finger to get some mud off. I think the dip and lightly clean method may leave some bloom intact. However, if you add soap, water with pressure or agitation of any sort, including vigorous rubbing or brushing, I think you are guaranteed to remove all traces of natural bloom.

So, it is my theory that LIGHT cleaning with no agitation and no soap may keep the eggs natural preservative qualities partially intact. Cleaning any more vigorously than that is likely to remove all bloom.

I would like to know if there is hard, reliable data on how durable bloom is, if it is slightly water repellent, can it survive a little moisture? I think because eggs are an outdoor event, birds hatch out of doors if given the chance and eggs do get wet, I think nature made eggs to retain some bloom after minimal wetting. But I doubt bloom will survive a scrubbing. But again...I would like to see research into this.

uno wrote:I would like to know if there is hard, reliable data on how durable bloom is, if it is slightly water repellent, can it survive a little moisture? I think because eggs are an outdoor event, birds hatch out of doors if given the chance and eggs do get wet, I think nature made eggs to retain some bloom after minimal wetting. But I doubt bloom will survive a scrubbing. But again...I would like to see research into this.

Oooh ya, now wouldn't this be an interesting thing to hear about. I too would love to know, got that curious side to me. I think of a duck, for example. When a duck is brooding on eggs, she goes and baths, ducks love to bath and then come in and sit on eggs. Picture how moist that duck belly must be, the humidity, picture what that must be like. Hmmmm....I like humidity. I wonder what it would be like to be below that beautiful and great belly of a brooding duck. I wanna be a hatching egg. I wanna be a hatching egg, below the beautiful and warm Jamaica heat and humidity which it must feel like below the belly of a big mamma duck.

Seriously. I bet the bloom is not as easy to get off as we think it is. I would NEVER use soap though if I wanted the bloom intact. I am sure soap would remove the bloom, just like it removes grease from dishes. Is the bloom greasy? Now there is another query to ponder. Good post, interesting information, anyone got some good studies. Surely some universities have performed this experiment. Beautiful and wonderful day wishes for us all, CynthiaM.

I have been told by a real old timer that any washing will remove the natural bloom. This is completely non scientific and undocumented, but I can tell you he was a fellow that knew his stuff and was a master in the poultry fancy.

I get very few soiled eggs so washing is not something I have ever felt the need to do. But then I go against the grain and don't refridgerate my eggs right away either.

I would sure like to know the truth on this. Not only for its impact on eating eggs, but incubator eggs as well.

I will not set dirty eggs! I wash my bator eggs. But it's a light rinse in warm water to remove dust and shavings and if they have a glob of poop, they simply are not going to be put in the bator.

I think putting poop in the bator introduces bacteria you don't want in there! But washing so hard it takes all the bloom off the egg also leaves your eggs open to bacterial invasion. There is a middle ground here, I think, but need more information to find what that is.

Maybe ducks have different bloom than chickens? Do all eggs have bloom or just some? Do alligator and snake eggs have bloom? I want to know.

Thank you Uno, this takes my question a bit deeper and kinda where I was heading!

As for how durable the bloom is.... well that is a question that I wish Miss Tara could answer as she always knows these things! We're DOOMED We may never know??? He he he! Do I smell a rat.... nope it's poop on my boot ... miss that lady!!

On another side note I was kinda wondering from the consumer point of view. Would they feel safer knowing their eggs were "properly" washed with soap? Not saying this IS a safer method in any way it is just what people are lead to believe, come on.... we all know how unsafe our uninspected eggs are. My own family was quite nervous that we only washed in water, all paranoid of the poopy! So I am thinking if my own family has been paranoid how am I gonna sell to anyone else?? Maybe that is the magic of the soap... provides fake sense of security

We wash ours to eat like everyone else with warm water and light scrubbing and have never had a problem. Coopslave, I have heard this too and when I first started researching for our own uses also read that if you for whatever reason do have to wash you should never let the eggs sit in water for ANY length of time just let it run(or dribble ) over them. It was an article I found googling and no solid evidence there. I was actually surprised how many people soak them first!

This is very interesting and I hope we get more input!!

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This says that washing removes most if not all of the bloom. But to my mind this is still not the hard evidence I seek. Too vague. Interesting read anyway.

Ok...first of all thank you so much to all of you for your input! Some good conversation going on here. As I said in my original post, I very rarely have a dirty egg and so far have not really had to wash more than a few. The ones that I do wash I simply leave them in my wire egg basket, and using really warm water, I just use the spray nozzle on the tap, take each egg and run it under the gentle spray for only a second, gently rub off the dirty spot, one more very QUICK rinse and then on a wire rack to dry.

Here is something I tried just for the heck of it Uno. I have a young pullet just started to lay recently and she insists on laying on the floor so far. Bad chicken. Her eggs are usually dirty by the time I get home from work to collect them so I have only kept those to cook for the dogs. So...for my little experiment I took a couple of her eggs and instead of just giving them the quick dash under the tap, I held them under and gave them a good rub using just my fingers. What's funny is that when I first picked the egg up I could actually feel that slippery shiny glossiness (is that a word?) of the egg, but by the time I was finished scrubbing, the egg now felt dry and chalky. Hmm...so I am thinking that my vigorous rubbing washed off the bloom? This, with only using plain water...so I'm thinking I agree with Uno in that soap would wash even more of the bloom off.

I would be interested to see if any of you notice a difference in the feel of the egg shell after rubbing them quite a bit. I also read somewhere that you can rub cooking oil back onto the egg after washing to take the place of the bloom?? Umm...I'm not convinced. I think I will continue to just give them that quick dash under warm water with a very gently rub of said dirty spot.

Very interesting discussion though!

Oh...and Cynthia...may I say that you're eggs look just beautiful! Thanks for your pics

Ok, I am going to give you my take on it. No quote or documented back up, just things I have learned and then understood to be the way it is. Is it totally correct, I don't know, but it is what I believe and it is why I do some of the things the way I do.

Have you ever found an egg RIGHT when it has been laid? It is still a bit damp. I believe that is when the bloom is laid down on the egg. It is a very light, delicate coating to the egg that dries almost instantly and has super powers unless compromised.

To me it is like salt water, you know if you go in the ocean and you get that coating of salty stuff on you skin that stays there until it is rinsed off? That is what the bloom reminds me of.

See, no proof, no technical language or quotes, just how my weird brain retains things.

As I said before, I keep my unwashed, bloom intacked eggs on the counter for a few days before I refrigerate them. I do this for a couple of reasons.
I prefer them for cooking at room temperature. I like my yolks soft and I can cook them to warm and still have a soft yolk, you can't do that with an egg from a fridge. A cold, soft yolk makes me gag!!!
I like them out on the counter where I can keep track of them, in the fridge they seem to get lost in the deep recesses!
The time when an egg is most at risk for absorbing bad things (another technical term for you) is when it is damp. Have you ever noticed when you take eggs out of the fridge and leave them on the counter, what happens? They become damp with condensation. This is high risk to me. My eggs are given to people fresh, room temperature and unrefrigerated. Then there is no risk of condensation on the trip home in the car and they can put them in the fridge when they get there.
I should note that I don't sell eggs, I barter for a few things and give lots to family. They get fresh eggs, never more than 2 or 3 days old.
My home eggs I am happy to leave on the counter for up to 7ish days, then they get cooked for the animals or I put them in a carton and put them in the fridge.
Most people with chooks in Australia don't refrigerate eggs if they have fresh ones. It is a lot hotter there than here and there never seems to be trouble. I think some of the guidelines is for protecting the a$$ of commercial producers (especially in North America) if something goes wrong, but that is just my personal view of it.

So to round it off, just what I think and my opinion and experiences, no concrete evidence or documentation to be seen!

Here is an interesting perspective:

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And one even more opinionated about it:

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More theorizing.

Most membranes inside a body, like the inside of a chicken's vent, are a mucous membrane. Mucous. Think slime.

Having had dogs who drool, think slime again, I learned that a big glop of dog drool flung on a wall is a LOT harder to wipe off than you think. That slime does not want to let go of whatever it's glued to. Fresh slime is easier to remove than dry slime. Dog drool eihter had to be removed immediately when wet, or left until dry and then flaked off with a fingernail. But taking a wet cloth to dry slime made a big mess that was a lot of work to clean up.

In my limited experience with slime I have found it more tenacious than first thought. I still think that a simple rinse or brief soak in very warm water will not remove 100% of the bloom. I do not think it is a water coating as much as a light slime coating and I am convinced that slime is sticky stuff! So a light cleaning should leave some (can't say how much) bloom intact.

I finally have a few home raised eggs, thanks to birds from Coopslave, and like Coopslave I had left the eggs on the counter for a few days. This morning before I cooked them I filled a bowl with hottish water and set the eggs in for a brief soak. This is the important part: THe shavings that had stuck when the eggs were laid, remained stuck the whole time to eggs soaked. THey did not let loose and float to the surface. I had to scrape them off. This tells my unscientific mind that despite the presence of hot water, something sticky remained on that egg! I think that something sticky was the bloom. ANd that it didn't let go of the shaving says to me that the bloom itself was NOT immediately dissolved. If handled with care, I think some bloom does indeed remain on the egg.

I have posted this on another egg site, shall see what answers come up.

Uno, is it a darkish egg? I ask because that pullet is a Marans x and I have found that the shavings from the nest boxes stays on the dark eggs more firmly than other eggs. The dark eggs of the Marans are much more tacky from the dark brown coating that is deposited just before laying, than a regular brown egg is.

Not to say the mucous thing is not right, it all sounds very reasonable.

Just another observation to add to it all.

*just adding another question, is this why moms always used spit to clean stuff off kids faces?!

I have been told at a hatching seminar that there is no such thing about a protective bloom.

That said, try to wash a duck egg. There is definitely a waxy coating on there. It is hard to remove too.

Just to clarify....I only wash the eggs I sell or barter, not the ones we eat or incubate. I am fine with unwashed eggs, others may not be.

As for the "special soap", well it makes sense to me. Here is an analogy for you. Would you use dishsoap on your hair or is it better to use shampoo? Both can be used but one is better for washing your hair with than the other. I figure the same goes for egg wash compound. It is a food grade detergent formulated to help lift off poop and dirt quickly with no need to scrub the shells.

As for the bloom...I think it would be interesting to see say after 2 weeks the average size of the air cell in washed vs. unwashed eggs. I thiink smaller air cell= fresher egg but maybe at hypothesis is flawed? Or you could do it by weight, weigh each of the dozen eggs (or replicate it if you wish) at the beginning and the end and see what the weight loss it. Or measure how well the egg "stands up" when you crack it. Anyone got kids that need a science project?

Poplar Girl, that was my idea too, only use the soap for the eggs I would sell(dirty or not), in my mind it would help eliminate any second guessing on my part or the customers. I was just worried it may have been a marketing gimmic or something, I am somewhat skeptical of items you find in store's these days. Thanks for sharing your experience with the 'special soap'

Poplar girl, I think YOU should do that expirement, forget the kids!

I agree with Uno ... it would be interesting to see what happens!