How to Tell If Water Glassed Eggs Are Bad

By John Walker · Backyard chicken keeper in Dallas, Texas since 2017

How to tell if water glassed eggs are bad is a question that comes with a hard truth attached: there is no reliable home test for whether a water glassed egg is safe to eat. Water glassing means storing clean, unwashed eggs in lime water, and the method is not recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture or by university extension services, because there is no tested safe recipe and the risk of botulism is real. That said, keepers who water glass do check their eggs, and there are signs that an egg has gone bad: a cracked shell, a bad smell when the jar is opened, a cloudy or slimy white, or a yolk that breaks at once. This guide explains the checks that help, the checks that do not work, and why the safest answer is still to use a tested method instead.

How to tell if water glassed eggs are bad?

The checks for a water glassed egg start with the shell. Lift the egg out of the jar and look at it in good light. A good water glassed egg has an intact shell with no cracks, no chips, and no slimy coating that will not rinse off.

A cracked egg is bad, full stop: the crack lets lime water and bacteria into the egg, and the egg should be thrown away. Do not try to use a cracked water glassed egg, even if it smells fine, because the crack is an open door for contamination.

Next, smell the egg. Crack it into a bowl, on its own, before adding it to any other food, and smell it. A fresh egg has almost no smell. A bad egg smells of rotten egg or sulphur, and the smell is unmistakable once you have met it. If the egg smells bad, throw it away, wash the bowl, and wash your hands. Do not taste an egg that smells bad to check whether it is really bad, because the smell is the check.

Then look at the white and the yolk. A water glassed egg that is still usable has a white that is clear or slightly cloudy and a yolk that holds its shape when it is cracked into a bowl. A white that is pink, green or brown, or that is slimy or full of dark specks, is a bad sign. A yolk that breaks the moment it leaves the shell, or that is flat and watery, suggests the egg is very old, and it should be thrown away rather than used.

Finally, look at the jar itself. The lime water will turn cloudy over time, which is normal, and a white sediment at the bottom is normal too. But a jar that smells bad when it is opened, or that has a thick, coloured scum on the surface, or that contains several cracked eggs, is a jar to be suspicious of. If in doubt, throw the eggs away. The cost of a dozen eggs is small compared with the cost of food poisoning, and this is the one place where caution is always the right choice.

Why there is no reliable home test

The hard truth about water glassed eggs is that an egg can look fine, smell fine, and still be unsafe. The main risk is botulism, caused by a bacterium that grows in low-acid, oxygen-free environments, and a sealed jar of eggs in lime water is exactly that kind of environment.

Botulism does not change the look or the smell of food, so an egg that carries it can pass every home check and still make someone seriously ill.

The float test, which many keepers use for fresh eggs, does not work for water glassed eggs. In a fresh egg, the air cell grows as the egg ages, and an old egg floats in water while a fresh one sinks. But a water glassed egg has been sitting in liquid for months, its shell has been sealed by the lime, and its air cell has not grown in the same way, so the float test gives no useful information. Do not use it, and do not trust a water glassed egg because it sank.

Candling, which means holding the egg up to a bright light to see inside, is also of limited use. Candling can show a crack, a large air cell, or a yolk that has broken and mixed with the white, and all of those are useful signs. But candling cannot show bacteria, and it cannot show botulism, so a clear candle does not mean a safe egg. It is a useful check for obvious damage, and nothing more.

The United States Department of Agriculture and university extension services do not recommend water glassing at all, and that is the reason: there is no tested recipe, and no home test can prove the eggs are safe. Our guide to how to water glass eggs explains the method and the official advice in full, and our guide to how to freeze fresh eggs covers the tested alternative that extension services recommend. If you have water glassed eggs and you are unsure about them, the safest choice is to throw them away and freeze the next glut instead.

What to do with a jar of water glassed eggs

If you have a jar of water glassed eggs, check it regularly, at least once a month, and remove any egg that has cracked or that smells bad when the jar is opened. Use the oldest eggs first, and do not keep a jar for longer than a year.

The risk rises with time and there is no benefit to keeping eggs longer than you need to. Label the jar with the date the eggs went in, so you know how old they are.

When you use an egg, crack it into a bowl on its own, check the smell and the look, and only then add it to the recipe. Cook water glassed eggs thoroughly, because heat reduces some risks, although it does not remove the botulism risk entirely, and do not use them raw in recipes such as mayonnaise, mousse or a smoothie. Do not serve water glassed eggs to children, pregnant women, older people, or anyone with a weakened immune system, because those groups are most at risk from foodborne illness.

Do not sell water glassed eggs. The food safety rules for eggs sold to the public do not cover this method, and selling them would put you in a difficult position if someone fell ill. Keep water glassed eggs for your own household only, and only if you have decided to accept the risk that the official advice warns about. If you sell eggs, sell fresh eggs, stored and handled as our guide to how to store fresh eggs explains.

If the jar has several cracked eggs, or the water smells bad, or you have lost track of how old the eggs are, throw the whole jar away. It is not worth trying to save a few eggs from a jar that has gone wrong, and the cost of the eggs is small. Compost the eggs, wash the jar thoroughly with hot soapy water, and start again with a tested method such as freezing, which is safer and just as effective for a winter egg supply.

Signs of a bad egg: a closer look

A bad water glassed egg can fail in several ways, and it helps to know them all. The shell can crack, which is the clearest failure, and a cracked egg should be thrown away at once. The shell can also become rough.

Pitted or stained, which can mean the lime water has damaged it, or that bacteria have been at work. A shell that feels slimy and stays slimy after a rinse is also a bad sign.

The white is the next place to look. A fresh water glassed egg has a white that is clear or slightly cloudy, and that holds together when the egg is cracked into a bowl. A white that is pink, green, brown or black, or that is full of dark specks, has been invaded by bacteria, and the egg is bad. A white that is very thin and watery, with no body at all, suggests the egg is very old, and it should be thrown away even if it smells fine.

The yolk should be round, firm and golden, and it should hold its shape when the egg is cracked into a bowl. A yolk that is flat, broken, or mixed into the white suggests the egg has aged badly, and a yolk that is green, black or mottled is a sign of bacterial growth. A yolk with a dark ring around it can be a sign of age, but it is not always a sign of danger, so use the smell and the white as the main checks and the yolk as a supporting one.

The smell is the most reliable of the home checks, and it is the one to trust. A bad egg smells of sulphur or rotten egg, and the smell is strong and unmistakable. If you are unsure whether an egg smells bad, it probably does, because a good egg has almost no smell at all. Trust your nose, throw the egg away, and do not try to cook the smell out, because cooking does not make a bad egg safe.

Safer ways to preserve eggs

Freezing is the safest way to preserve a glut of eggs, and it is the method extension services recommend. Crack the eggs into a bowl, beat them lightly, and freeze them in portions in freezer bags or ice cube trays, with a pinch of salt or sugar per cup if you like, to keep the texture smooth.

Frozen eggs keep for up to a year, they thaw quickly for scrambling and baking, and the method is tested and safe. Our guide to how to freeze fresh eggs explains it in full.

Refrigeration is the simplest method, and it needs no special equipment. Eggs kept in the fridge last three to five weeks, and if your flock produces more than you can use in five weeks, the answer is to sell or give away the surplus, or to freeze it, rather than to store it for months. A flock that produces a large spring glut will usually slow down in summer and autumn, so the surplus is temporary.

Pickling is another tested alternative for hard-boiled eggs, and it produces a safe, long-lasting product when a tested recipe is followed. Pickled eggs keep for months in the fridge, and they are a useful way to use up a glut of small eggs. Use a tested recipe from a university extension service, and do not invent your own, because the acid level and the processing time are what make pickling safe, and getting them wrong is dangerous.

The key in every case is to use a method that has been tested for safety, rather than one that relies on tradition alone. Water glassing is traditional, but it is not tested, and that is the difference that matters. If you want to preserve eggs for winter, freezing is the answer, and if you want to know how long fresh eggs last and how to store them day to day, our guide to how to store fresh eggs is the place to start.

What keepers report about water glassed eggs

Many keepers who water glass report that their eggs keep well, and that they use them for frying and baking for eight to twelve months without any problem. They report that the whites become thinner over time, and the yolks become more fragile, but that the eggs still taste normal and cook well.

Those reports are real, and they are part of why the method stays popular, and this guide does not dismiss them.

But absence of reported problems is not proof of safety, and that is the point the official advice makes. Botulism is rare, and a case is hard to trace to a particular food, so a keeper who has used water glassed eggs for years without a problem may simply have been lucky, or may have had a jar that stayed safe by chance. The risk is low, but the consequence is severe, because botulism is a serious illness that can be fatal, and it is not a risk that a home test can rule out.

Keepers also report the practical problems: eggs that crack in the jar, jars that go cloudy, eggs that taste of lime, and the difficulty of knowing when an egg has gone bad. Those reports match the checks in this guide, and they show that water glassing is not the simple, foolproof method it is sometimes presented as. It takes care, attention and a willingness to throw eggs away, and even then it carries a risk that freezing does not.

The balanced view is this: if you water glass, check every egg as this guide describes, throw away anything doubtful, cook the eggs thoroughly, and do not serve them to vulnerable people. And if you have not started yet, freeze your eggs instead, because freezing is tested, safe, and just as useful for a winter supply. Either way, the decision should be an informed one, made with both the tradition and the official advice in front of you.

Sources: USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, shell eggs from farm to table and poultry.extension.org.

Related tools and guides

For more on the same topic, see How to Water Glass Eggs.

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