The incredible, edible egg. That was a tag-line for the egg industry for good reason. Eggs are small packages of concentrated nutrition for us and a nifty reproduction method for a large percentage of the earth’s living creatures. In order to enable protected embryo development outside the body of the mother animal it has super anti-biotic powers!
The protection the egg provides is interesting, and it leads some people to decide they don't need to refrigerate the eggs.
At the very last stage before being laid, eggs are coated with a protective layer called the bloom or cuticle. This is an antibiotic layer added in the final 2 hours of making the egg that seals the porous shell so the embryo has time to develop without bacteria interfering. After a period of time, the seal wears off and the millions of pores in the shell allow oxygen to enter the egg for the developing chick.
This initial layer of protective seal is important because the egg passes through the cloaca to leave the hen’s body. The cloaca is also where fecal and urinary material pass through, so it is biologically necessary for the species to protect the egg from bacterial contamination.Â
There are various practices around how to keep your eggs. Many people who don’t wash their home-grown eggs choose to store them unrefrigerated. This could be a good plan if you eat your eggs quickly after they are laid. Obviously, this worked pretty well and was standard in the time before refrigeration was widespread. And it became important for creating certain recipes - a cold egg does not incorporate into batters as easily as a room temperature egg, causing changes in the rise and texture of the baked product. Â
So how should you store our Deck Family Farm eggs? Refrigerate!
At Deck we do a minimal amount of egg washing. If they are dirty we wash them with a damp cloth, but if they are clean we do not do much more than dust them off. Since you won’t be able to tell which eggs are and are not washed, we recommend always refrigerating them.
We collect eggs two times every day (12 months of the year) and each collection is carefully tracked so we can date them. Each carton is stamped with a date 6 weeks after the eggs were laid. This means we expect the egg to be edible up until that date. Given that we deliver frequently and directly to our customers or to small, local stores, it is likely that you are buying eggs no older than 1 week after they were laid.
If you find yourself concerned about your eggs, know this: Eggs that are not good will look and/or smell funny, so if you are in doubt, crack the egg into a bowl to examine it before adding it to a recipe.
If you need your eggs room temperature for a recipe, just put them in a bowl of hot tap water for a few minutes to bring them up from cold to room-temperature.