How Fresh Are Those Eggs

Hands up all those that have cracked an egg into a cake mix only to discover that the egg was ba

My hand is up because that has happened to me and it is totally disgusting. This is the one thing that no one ever seems to want to repeat in any hurry again either. And I can’t blame them. The smell of a rotten egg is hard to forget in a hurry.

So the obvious questions then comes to mind of just how can we know if an egg is good or bad before we crack the egg open?

Is your egg really fresh?

Well here is how you can find out once and for all.

Many of the eggs that we buy in our supermarkets are very far from actually being fresh and in some cases they are dangerously close to being un-usable at all.

For those that have free ranging hens and you come across that clutch of eggs in the woodshed or under the porch or bushes out back, there is always the question of are they fresh, and are they safe to eat?

Well folks there is a very simple way to determine the approximate age of those eggs and ensure that the eggs that you are about to eat are indeed fresh and safe to eat.

Place the eggs carefully into a glass bowl which has been ¾ filled with clean cold water.

Very fresh eggs will sink to the bottom and lay flat on their side.

Eggs that are one or two weeks old will rest on the bottom but will stand up on the bigger end of the egg. As they reach the 2 to 2 ½ weeks old stage they can rise off the bottom of the bowl slightly and become suspended in the water but close to the bottom of the bowl.

Eggs that are 3 weeks old will balance on the pointed end of the egg with the bigger end to the top.

All these eggs are still perfectly safe to eat. The fresher eggs are best for eating as cooked eggs for eating or to make egg nog, soufflés, custards and the like.

The eggs that are slightly older are perfectly fine for baking in cakes and the like where they are incorporated well into other ingredients.

Now comes the danger ones. If the eggs are floating then discard them immediately and do not crack them open as these ones are rotten. 

They are not at all safe to use for human consumption and must be discarded.

The  picture below here, will give you a good idea of what I am meaning and gives you a visual look see at the BAD egg and how it will sit in the water.

Photo Credit Unknown

These BAD eggs are however not totally useless, as they make the perfect bait to attract eels into a basket trap.

Just place the rotten eggs into a plastic bag, tying the top off and when you get to where you want to fish for eels break the eggs by dropping the bag. Put a couple of holes in the bag (while holding your nose as they stink like crazy), and immediately place the bag into the basket trap and lower into the water.

Go back after a few hours or leave it overnight and low and behold, if there are eels anywhere in the creek or river, then a good number of them will now be in your trap.

It is best to leave the trap in the water overnight as eels are night feeders primarily, although they will feed during the day if excessively hungry.

Smoked eel makes a wonderful dip or spread and provides an excellent free nutrient enriched protein. Eels are boney creatures, but well worth the effort to remove the bones which is best done after they are cooked. You remove the slimy by nailing their head to a post and pulling an old sack down the body. Sounds really gross but is no worse than gutting a fish.

If you don’t plan on doing a spot of eel fishing, then the eggs can simply be tossed into your compost heap. They are best broken up and this can be done using the garden fork and then sprinkle with a little lime to stop the smell.

This method described above for testing eggs will work for all species of eggs, be they chicken, duck, goose, turkey or even quail etc.

Enjoy and put your minds to rest that now you can quickly identify if eggs are good or bad without breaking them open first and potentially ruining that cake mix.