
Dehydrating Eggs at Home (2015) - pmoriarty
https://www.backwoodshome.com/dehydrating-eggs-at-home/
======
mattmaroon
"Eggs dehydrate easily, and most online sources suggest keeping the eggs at
135° F to 145° F for about 10 hours. However this temperature is not
sufficient to keep salmonella from forming during the dehydration process,
because this leaves eggs in the food safety danger zone for too long."

Umm, no. The food wouldn't be in the danger zone very long, and even if it
were the following 9 hours would be more than enough to kill them.

~~~
rootusrootus
Yeah that's what I was thinking. 135F will kill salmonella in under an hour.

From how it's worded in the article, I assume they're just ignorant of how
pasteurization works at different temperatures so they're going by the over-
simplified recommendation from FDA. I see this same misunderstanding happen
periodically on the sous vide forums.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah. Probably lots of people who don't know what they're talking about said
that and he just assumed they are correct. A thin layer of egg in what is
essentially a convection oven is going to heat up very fast.

~~~
ganafagol
She

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hirundo
I like to make large batches of frittata in muffin pans, seal in vacuum bags
and freeze. Defrost and nuke as needed. It's less flexible than just eggs, but
a great low carb treat. They don't last long around here.

Suddenly "egg bites" are a thing in supermarkets and Starbucks. These are a
homemade version without the need for an expensive vacuum chamber.

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205guy
Another way to preserve eggs:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg)

I've never had the chance to try them, and they don't look appetizing, but now
I'm kinda curious how they taste.

~~~
downerending
Pretty bad. The white ends up amber and rather leathery. My Chinese friend
won't eat them.

~~~
scruple
I don't like them either. My wife adds them to congee and I always fish out
the black pieces when I make my bowl. There's just something about it that I
can't get passed. It's a little bit goofy because there isn't much (pungent
food) that I don't eat. I eat durian and love durian deserts and stinky tofu
but I don't mess with these eggs, which are pretty tame comparatively.

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mythrwy
Dehydrated eggs used to be very inexpensive. I bought a case (6) big cans I
think in like 2009 for I want to say around $100. Wow that has changed. I
still have most of the case, not sure how long they last. I opened a can like
2 years ago and it had an oxygen absorber and was fine. I got them here.
[https://honeyville.com/](https://honeyville.com/)

I highly recommend the 6 grain cereal, it's awesome.
[https://shop.honeyville.com/6-grain-rolled-
cereal.html](https://shop.honeyville.com/6-grain-rolled-cereal.html) The dried
eggs frankly were not as good. I think they were mostly yolks. They were good
to bake with.

For what it's worth chickens aren't that cheap to raise anyway. You need a
coop and usually food. I'd rather just spend a little and avoid the hassle.
The last batch of chickens I had never even made it to laying before they were
all eaten by a fox or weasel or something. But free range chicken eggs are
very tasty.

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anonu
That was oddly a fun read. And I got a chuckle from the conclusion:

    
    
      So is it worthwhile to dehydrate eggs?
    
      From a cost standpoint, the answer is unequivocally “yes,” but only if you keep your own hens to begin with

~~~
pnut
That statement really confused me.

The cost difference between those two scenarios is the purchase price of the
eggs, which are what, $2/dozen?

How can such an immaterial expense provoke an unequivocal conclusion?

And how can one ignore the cost of feeding & housing chickens vs just going to
the store and purchasing eggs? Store-bought eggs are almost certainly cheaper
in absolute terms.

~~~
shalmanese
You don't get to control output if you own your own hens. If you buy eggs and
you have too many eggs, just stop buying eggs. If you own hens and you don't
sell/give away eggs, there's no equivalent solution, thus preservation.

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edoo
"Despite the concerns in recent years about cholesterol and other issues"

I grew up in the era where the egg lobby had billboards up saying it was OK to
eat eggs once a week. This was after cholesterol and saturated fat was
demonized after some docs found peoples arteries stuffed with it. It turned
out to be fake science. My parents fed me poisonous partially hydrogenated
margarine instead of butter because of that crap. They've recently discovered
eating cholesterol is of no concern. You don't have to worry about it at all.
Inflammation is the real concern. Saturated fats are the safest fats.

~~~
jbd0
Oxidized cholesterol, on the other hand, is not healthy. I would not eat
dehydrated egg yolks.

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MisterBastahrd
You could always use a sous vide device to pasteurize eggs before dehydrating
them. Crack them, mix them, throw them in a bag, and pasturize them for as
long as is appropriate. Easy.

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nazca
Another fun option for preserving eggs: salt them. I've never used them in a
recipe (not sure if they'd work). but they are delicious eaten like
charcuterie.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=cured+egg+yolks&oq=cured+egg...](https://www.google.com/search?q=cured+egg+yolks&oq=cured+egg+yolks)

~~~
RandallBrown
If you ever watch Bon Apetit videos on YouTube, they have a series where they
did a cured egg recipe. They grated it onto pasta.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp6F7jW5cmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp6F7jW5cmI)

I highly recommend the whole "It's Alive" series with Brad if you're into
preserving your own food.

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ebg13
This line got to me.

> _I blended two fresh eggs with ¼ cup of water and pan-scrambled them._

Is adding water to scrambled eggs really a thing that people do? Never in my
life have I added water to fresh eggs before scrambling them.

~~~
ksherlock
yes, some people add a bit of water or milk. In theory the water turns to
steam helps make them fluffy, I believe.

~~~
Uhhrrr
Yeah, it's definitely a thing, and I put in a little milk myself. But 2oz does
seem high.

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imglorp
What about vacuum dehydration? It should be much faster than the other
methods. Something like a pressure cooker and a vacuum pump shouldn't be too
hard to rig up.

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koolba
How about using a sous vide on the powder vacuum sealed eggs after it’s dried?

A long enough period at a lower temperature should kill any salmonella no?

~~~
Reelin
According to this page (I didn't verify it myself), salmonella is quite
difficult to dry sterilize.

([https://www.foodsafety-experts.com/food-safety/salmonella-
se...](https://www.foodsafety-experts.com/food-safety/salmonella-secrets/))

> Salmonella is very difficult to kill when it is sitting in dry powders.
> Depending on the product you might need to get the product heated to
> temperatures above 150°C for at least 30 minutes to achieve a 6-log
> reduction if any Salmonella present in the product.

~~~
Xcelerate
Wow, this is news to me. I always assumed there were time-temperature curves
for pasteurization & sterilization that applied to bacteria regardless of the
medium the pathogens existed within. Food safety is actually pretty complex
and often gives me hesitation when cooking sous vide (for instance, botulism
spores from garlic can easily survive anaerobic sous vide conditions).

~~~
mattmaroon
I don't believe anyone has ever gotten botulism poisoning from sous vide
cooking and people cook garlic/onions that way all the time. I'm sure it
doesn't kill the spores but perhaps the heat still kills enough?

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Lunatic666
I was very sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that salmonella are only on the egg
shell and could probably be decontaminated by dropping them in boiling water
for a few seconds without denaturating the egg white. I really like the surge
in dyi/food realated articles on hacker news, keep them coming!

~~~
el_benhameen
I have heard of people using sous vide to pasteurize both the shells and
contents of eggs. This guy seems to have a pretty science-based process (see
the "Pasteurized in Shell Egg" section):

[http://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-
vide.html#Poultry_and_Eggs](http://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-
vide.html#Poultry_and_Eggs)

This is admittedly another piece of equipment to add to the process, but I
suspect that the intersection of "people who own a dehydrator" and "people who
own a sous vide machine" is pretty large.

~~~
wheels
The Food Lab has an article on sous vide eggs, including pasteurizing them
with a sous vide circulator:

[https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-
about-...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-about-
eggs.html)

Generally it's a great resource for nerdy cooking stuff.

I use that technique to make my own mayonnaise. I try to eat mostly organic
(or animal-welfare certified) animal products, but organic mayo is overly
expensive, so making my own is a nice (and super easy) alternative. You can
make a jar's worth for about 40 cents.

