The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1877-11-02
Keeping Eggs,


The following from the third report of
the butter and cheese association gives
the method of preserving eggs which is
practiced by large dealers.
To make the pickle, use stone lime,
fine salt and water in the following pro-
portions: One bushel of lime, eight
quarts of salt, twenty-five ten-quart pals
of water. The lime must be of the finest
quality, free from sand and dirt-lime
that will slake white, fine and clean.
Have the salt clean and the water pure
and sweet, free from all vegetable or
decomposed matter.
Stake the lime with a portion of the
water, then add the balance of the water
and the salt. Stir well three or four
times at intervals, and then let stand
until we'll settled and cold. Either dip
or draw off the clear pickle into the cask
or vat in which it is intended to preserve
the eggs. When the cask or vat is filled
to depth of fifteen or eighteen inches,
begin to put in the eggs, but when
they lie, say about one foot deep, spread
around over them some pickle that is a
little milky in appearance, made 50 by
stirring up some of the very light lime
PARTICLES that settle lagt, and continue
doing this as each lot of eggs is added.
The object of this is to have the fine
lime particles drawn into the pores of the
shells, as they will by kind of inductive
process, and thereby completely seal the
eggs. Care should be taken not to get
too much of the lime in; that is, not
enough to settle and stick to the shells of
the eggs and render them difficult to
clean when taken out. (The chief cause
of thin, watery whites in lined eggs is
that they are not properly sealed in the
manner described. Another cause is the
putting into the pickle cid stale eggs that
have thin, weak whites). When the
eggs are within four inches of the top of
the cask or vat, cover them with
factory cloth, and spread on two or
three inches of the lime that settles
in making the pickle, and it is
of the greatest importance that the pickle
be kept continually up over this lime. A
tin basin (holding about six to eight
dozen eggs), punched quite full of inch
holes, edge muff1ed with leather, and a
suitable handle about three feet long at
tached, will be found convenient for put
ting the eggs into the pickle. Fill the
basin with eggs put both under the
pickle and turn the eggs out; they will
90 to the bottom without breaking.
When the time comes to market the
eggs they must be taken out of the pickle,
cleaned, dried and packed. To clean
them, secure half of molasses hogshead.
or something like it, filling the same
about half full of water. Have a suffi-
Gent number of crates of the right size
to hold twenty to twenty-five dozen eggs)
made OF laths or other Stats, placed about
three-quarters of an inch apart. Sink one
OF these crates in the half hogshead, take
the basin used to put the eggs into the
pickle, dip the eggs by raising it up and
down in the water, and if necessary To |
clean them, set the crate nm
and douse water over the eggs; then. if |
any eggs are found, when packing. that
the lime has not been fully removed
from, they should be laid ont and all the
lime cleaned of before packing. Wber
the eggs are carefully washed, they can