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This time of year I have a ton of extra eggs. In the winter I have fewer. I have, therefore, been experimenting with egg preservation techniques.

I like pickled eggs a lot. They aren't very versatile so they can't be my only preservation solution but they are tasty and interesting.

Unfortunately, pickled egg recipes always say that the product must be refrigerated. This prevents me from storing the eggs until winter as I do not have that much fridge space.

The brine is fairly acidic and very salty. Why do they have to be refrigerated?

What do I have to do to make my pickled eggs shelf stable?

Sobachatina
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  • I'd rather sell them :) – Diana Jul 26 '12 at 04:37
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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg – Cynthia Jul 26 '12 at 09:09
  • In [an answer re: egg refrigeration](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/7665/67), the linked article also tested methods of holding eggs at room temp, and the 'waterglass' method had decent success for 3-4 months. – Joe Jul 31 '12 at 15:45
  • @BlessedGeek- Century eggs are another experiment that I am excited to try but the flavor is much different of course. – Sobachatina Nov 02 '12 at 14:04
  • I suppose it's not pickled so I'll just make this a comment, but you seem like a potential customer for the "water-glass" (sodium silicate) technique for storing eggs. – Ecnerwal Mar 23 '15 at 02:10
  • Can't you just can them? – user70848 Jan 12 '16 at 01:26
  • I recently saw something on historical egg preservation that had eggs stored at room temp for up to two years (quicklime method)... not pickled, eggs, fresh, and still usable for any egg use. It makes sense that there would be room temp egg recipes, since refrigeration is relatively recent, though I was surprised that it would work for months or years. One article is here (http://www.merlofarminggroup.com/preserving-eggs), original video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUYgguMz1qI) – Megha Sep 23 '16 at 23:59

13 Answers13

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Seems this is very common in Britain, where I come from, so google.co.uk did the business!

The recipe here allows storing in a cool, dark cupboard for up to six months, and it recommends leaving the eggs at least a month: http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/food/recipes/pickled-eggs

This one looks good, and I like the instructions for eating! http://www.pubbuddy.co.uk/pickled_egg_recipe_kitchen.php

Sue Saddest Farewell TGO GL
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Jane Sales
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    I read the whole last post just to get to "instructions for eating". LOL! – Jolenealaska Jul 25 '14 at 12:02
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    In (mainly more old-fashioned) English pubs, pickled egg and a bag of crisps (US: potato chips) is a common snack. The egg is placed in the open bag of crisps, which is then held closed, given a little shake to distribute the flavour of egg to the crisps, and crisp flavour to the egg. In my local, this delicacy is referred to as "egg and chips", with customers having their personal preference as to flavour of crisps. Mine is Salt & Vinegar. – Phil M Jones Sep 04 '14 at 08:24
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Yes being from England I have always stored my pickled eggs in a dark cupboard for at least a month (if they last that long from sticky fingers...) and ONLY after opening do I put them in the fridge. We also use Malt Vinegar to pickle them and yes you can get malt vinegar over here as my friend brought me some from Wisconsin and walmart now sell it.

hlward
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Being an elderly man who has frequented a bar or two in his day I must say that I have never seen pickled eggs, pickled pig's feet, pickled bologna, or any of the other pickled delights that beer drinkers are prone to nibbling on kept refrigerated. In days of yore many bars advertised free lunches of such goods with the purchase of a beer or two. The pickled products were kept in huge jars, submerged in vinegar and at room temperature. I never heard of anyone becoming ill from eating them.

user8552
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This is something asked very frequently on a canning site I am on and the answer is always a resounding NO. There is NO way to make pickled eggs shelf stable. To preserve eggs however I have heard that dehydrating them can work. Regarding the pickling, the chances of growing and subsequently eating Botulism is rather small but as it is a deadly neurotoxin any chance is too much for me personally.

This outlines a bit of information regarding how to safely pickle and store them: http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_06/pickled_eggs.html

Specifically this bit:

Storing Eggs

After making the eggs, the eggs require some time to season (i.e., pick up the flavors from the pickling brine). Keep them refrigerated at all times. If small eggs are used, 1 to 2 weeks are usually allowed for seasoning to occur. Medium or large eggs may require 2 to 4 weeks to become well seasoned. Use the eggs within 3 to 4 months for best quality.

Also this:

Caution: Home pickled eggs stored at room temperature have caused botulism. For the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), see http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4934a2.htm The Editorial Note in this report cautions against room temperature pickling and storage, also. The CDC further cautions that to reduce the risk for botulism when pickling, food items should be washed and cooked adequately, and utensils, containers, and other surfaces in contact with food, including cutting boards and hands, should be cleaned thoroughly with soap and warm water. Containers (e.g., jars and lids) in which pickling will occur should be sterilized (e.g., placed in boiling water for a prescribed period).

BunnyKnitter
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It's been my personal experience that they don't need refrigeration. I have been making them for over a year and keep them stored at room temperature and have not been made ill by eating them.

However I would like to make two things very clear:

  1. I never dilute the vinegar in the brine recipe to less than 5% acidity by adding water. I know a lot of recipes call for adding x amount of vinegar and so much water but doing this makes conditions more favorable for bacteria to grow because the PH level has been altered.
  2. Also I pickle them in the refrigerator for 3 weeks. After this time they have been (Pickled) resistant to spoilage, and are safe for room temperature storage.

Remember, if you are going to store your pickled eggs at room temperature, do not add water to your vinegar brine recipe.

KatieK
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user15065
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I know this is not a SCIENTIFIC test with control groups and such, but I will share my thoughts on this matter and how I've been pickling my fresh egg surplus for over 25 years with absolutely no ill effects, or refrigeration.

I may add that my 4 children were raised eating these eggs, even in the hot Southern summers, and they are all very much alive with children of their own... and for me, that's proof enough of my method...okay, my deceased wife's method... and no she did not die of food poisoning.

After the obvious hard boiling and peeling of the eggs, ensuring that the egg didn't get marred or damaged, I put them into sterilized mason jars, with sliced jalapeno, chili or habanero pepper rings.

I then boil about 2 cups of pure white vinegar with a 1/4 cup of pickling salt and one 500 mg, generic white vitamin C tablet until all solids are dissolved.

I then pour it right up to the top leaving no air space, so that when the lid and ring are put on and tightened, the excess is forced out. As the jars come to room temp, the lids will emit a "POP" when the suck inward. If no "POP" is heard and the lid does not get sucked in, those jars go in the fridge, the others go in my pantry... That's it.

I have never had a jar fail, however, there would be a simple way to know if it did and you have bacterial growth, the liquid will cloud up badly, the lid will swell and in drastic contamination, will leak... but that has never happened.

Remember this, from a chemistry standpoint, bacteria is more likely to grow in sugary environments, and there is little to no sugar in my method, plus the capsasin in the peppers is highly acidic, as is the ascorbic acid in the Vit C.

Jason Schock
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Thom
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  • Points of fact (1) capsaicin is not highly acidic, and is actually poorly soluble in water and weakly acidic solutions (2) ascorbic acid is a weak acid (3) there are many species of bacteria that contribute to foodborne illnesses and only some of them prefer sugar. – Didgeridrew Mar 22 '15 at 04:17
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Pickled eggs don't spoil usually because they are eaten fairly quickly. I agree with the above person not to dilute the brine with water. I have been making pickled eggs for over a decade and have never had spoilage problems I think because I don't dilute the vineager when mixing with other spices etc. You can leave them out indefinately if the temperature is fairly consistant. For example, you don't want to keep the jar of eggs in drastic changes in light or temperatures. Keep them in a place where the direct sun doesn't hit them, and keep them in a place where the temperatures don't vary much. You don't need a refridgerator for pickled eggs if the brine solution is strong enough. I think people put them in the fridge so they get cold. They seem to taste better cold, but it's not necessary to refridgerate them.

Don
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I am a long time 'canner' - mainly dill pickles and jams. I've made simple refrigerated pickled eggs, but just today am packing 8 pints of water bath eggs. I've made some different packing liquids to try, and most use very little (if any) added water. I use 'pickling' vinegar (7%) vs. regular (5%). I hot packed them - with all ingredients near boiling point. I then water-bathed them for 15 minutes. My plan is to store them unrefridgerated. My reasoning is this - there has evidently been only one reported/documented case of botulism from picked eggs, in 1997 (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4934a2.htm).

The report states in part " ...The pickled eggs were prepared using a recipe that consisted of hard-boiled eggs, commercially prepared beets and hot peppers, and vinegar. The intact hard-boiled eggs were peeled and punctured with toothpicks then combined with the other ingredients in a glass jar that closed with a metal screw-on lid. The mixture was stored at room temperature and occasionally was exposed to sunlight." Sounds to me like they weren't necessarily packed "hot", and the liquid PH wasn't as high as it should be. Further, the report states he punctured the hard boiled eggs to get better pickling penetration. Some recipes do suggest that, but I think you're better off to not puncture the egg than give it a wound through which bacteria can enter.

That said, eggs do have a PH of about 7-8 - fairly high. I also think that if you hot pack carefully (including being scrupulously clean, etc.) and use a high vinegar recipe that the chance of there being Clostridium botulinum inside an egg itself is pretty infinitesimal. This is my first shot at this but I feel pretty confident I'll not get botulism.

Dave M.
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    "I most likely won't get botulism" is not the same thing as "this is safe." And getting away with it once or several times doesn't really tell you how risky it is. – Cascabel Sep 23 '16 at 21:12
  • Isn't a ph of 7 neutral? How is 7-8 a "high" ph. – Catija Sep 23 '16 at 21:30
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    @Catija It's high for canning, where the dividing line is 4.6. Above that is "low-acid", i.e. too high a pH for boiling water bath canning. – Cascabel Sep 23 '16 at 21:45
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I am 54 now I have been eating pickled eggs since I could walk and talk. My grandmother had a shelf in the corner of the kitchen where there was always pickled food,the eggs were the best and they were never kept cold no one got sick or died in her house.

Dave
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I used to visit this little hole in the wall bar many years ago that had a 5 gallon jar of pickled eggs. The label on the jar was torn off in a recognizable way. The same jar was used throughout, and there were never more eggs, always less, but not by much. I was one of maybe 3 people that would eat the things, being young and bullet-proof, (so I thought) and I swear that jar took two years to empty. It sat on a shelf behind the bar, in a dimly-lit area. I never experienced any ill effects.

John Blankenship
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    "I never experienced any ill effects" is not an argument valid in food safety. You dodged a risk of getting ill, but you cannot say if you had a chance of getting ill in one in a million and it was really safe, or one in a ten and you got really lucky, or anywhere in between. To pronounce something safe, a complex prediction model is needed, with lots of data points. – rumtscho Sep 04 '14 at 09:11
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I live in a sub tropical area and preserve everything in jars from salsa to venison casserole. I always boil the filled, sealed jars for 15 mins in either a large pot of water or pressure cooker(fully covered with water).Once cooled check that the lid is sealed tightened then store in a pantry.This is how the italians preserve this tomato puree and I believe that this final process kills any harmful bacteria that may be present and leaves a sterile environment in the sealed jars. I have recently opened jars of venison chilli (which i found hidden on the back shelf) that were done over 2 years ago and they were absolutely perfect.All commercial canning is done the same way.

paul
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    Commercial canning and proper home canning of low-acid foods requires higher temperatures than the boiling point of water, achieved using a pressure canner. Simply boiling in an unpressurized pot is insufficient. – Cascabel Oct 23 '17 at 22:53
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Vinegar is a natural preservative. I don't see how it would spoil.

Mien
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shayne
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    Just because you don't see how something could spoil doesn't mean that it won't; while vinegar may in some circumstances be a preservative, you should provide detail as to when that is true, such as the strength required and how to recognize it to improve the quality of this answer. – SAJ14SAJ Apr 05 '13 at 06:44
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mixing the vinegar with water WILL dilute the vinegar AND make the PH go up (more toward neutral) and I am of the opinion that a 5% vinegar solution is ideal for pickling. So I suggest NO water in the solution unless you want to keep them refrigerated, and even then I might

rumtscho
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oxdrover
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    Welcome to the site! *Have you read the question?* The first rule for an answer here is "answer the question". Could you please remove the long rambling about general food preservation, pressure canning and your personal history? I see one paragraph on not dilluting vinegar, but can't tell whether this is a general statement or refers directly to the eggs in the question. The rest is unfortunately off-topic. – Stephie Sep 02 '15 at 08:52
  • As Stephie pointed out, most of your post was unrelated to the question. I kept the paragraph which has a suggestion of how to proceed, but I find it a very poor answer. Just because diluted vinegar is a bad idea, I don't see any proof that undiluted vinegar is safe enough for the purpose. – rumtscho Sep 02 '15 at 22:00