I'm tripping with a partner who would dearly love fresh eggs on our trip. I've never taken them before. Any suggestions.
How long will they keep without refrig., any really good substitutes? I already have one of those plastic segmented egg carriers for car camping. I have only 5 days before I leave so send help soon. Thanks

First, there are NO "really good" substitutes.  There are those that you can choke down without gagging (a 3 on a scale of 1-10) and those that the Donner Party would have left untouched (.00000000000000001 on a scale of 1-10).

Moving on to fresh eggs, I have kept them for 5 days or so in some pretty warm temps with no problem.  Keep 'em cool as long as possible by surrounding them with any other refrigerated or frozen items when you pack the food pack.  As long as they stay unbroken you should not have problems.  

It IS possible for eggs to be contaminated with salmonella already when you buy them.  The possibility is extremely remote.  However, that's why eggs are kept refrigerated normally.  I take the eggs and I don't worry about it.  Your chances of getting giardia from swimming in the lake, falling on a portage and breaking an ankle, etc. are much, much greater than the chances that one of your eggs has salmonella inside.  Otherwise they do just fine unrefrigerated for a week or less.  That shell keeps decompositional bacteria out so the egg can't rot.

If you can track down farm-fresh eggs that haven't been refrigerated, they'll keep a lot longer than the store bought ones.  And, if you've never had them, you're in for a real treat - there's no comparison when it comes to taste.

Good question Kingfisher
I also enjoy fresh eggs but have always been too "chicken" (sorry) to bring them along. My alternative, although a compromise has been to boil a dozen eggs and fry a pound of bacon to be eaten cold the first 2 days of the trip. Doing so the first morning out gives you a hot breakfast.  Doing it at home saves you the clean up.
-YB

I bring fresh eggs all the time and it is not a problem.  First get the freshest eggs possible.  

Second, try to get medium size eggs.  The shells are thicker.  I plan on three medium eggs per person rather than two large.  

Third, buy them in a CARDBOARD container.  Inspect each egg to make sure there are no cracks, etc.  I wipe them clean and place them back in their cardboard container.  I then wrap that container with some corrugated cardboard and duct tape it in place.

I've never had any breakage doing this.  I've had eggs out about a week and they were still good.

Powdered eggs generally are not good.  I buy mine at my local food CoOp.  I don't remember the brand but it come in a quart, plastic jar.  That jar lasts me years.  Powdered eggs are great as a substitute for fresh eggs in baking or making a "regular" pancake mix into a "add water only" mix (adding powdered milk as well).

However, I have found one way that powdered eggs are good, and that is as a breakfast burrito.  Here is my recipe:

Breakfast Burrito
     
1/2 cup powdered eggs
Spices (1 teaspoon chili powder blend, 1/4 teaspoon oregano, etc.)
1/4 cup dried beef (or substitute hard salami)
4 teaspoons dried bell peppers
1 Tablespoon dried minced onions
2 teaspoons dried celery
Some hard cheese
2 or 3 Tortillas
     
At Home: Put powdered egg & spices in one bag.  Mix together peppers, onions, and celery in another bag.  

In Camp: Combine the vegetable mixture with 3/4 cups of water and set aside for 15 minutes.  Add powdered egg and meat. Let stand for another 5 minutes.  Fry adding cheese near the end so that it melts.  Roll equal portions in each of the tortillas and topped with salsa (poached from your local Taco Bell).

When it comes to Fresh eggs, If they are truly farm fresh eggs then they will stay a quite a while. When I lived in Australia thats all they had. We kept eggs for weeks without refrigeration. They thought I was wierd to put them in the fridge. Never had a problem, and I got a lot more of the 2 in 1 eggs. The hardest part is keeping them from breaking. I had a plastic egg holder that didn't work that well. Sometimes I hard boil them and they stay for a couple days.

I do what Bannock does and feel that I can use them whenever in spring and fall if temps have been cool or by day three in summer. I try to make sure the eggs are kept sfae and suurround the container with cardboard as well as surround that with stiff things near the top of the pack. I also place the cardboard egg package in a big zip lock just in case an egg breaks. Having a broken egg all over the inside of a pack for 7 days in July gets pretty stinky-Trust me I know.

Several years ago I packed in eggs but out of fear of them breaking in my food pack and making a royal mess I de-shelled? them at home into a nalgene bottle and hoped for the best.  To my surprse they kept for at least 7 days.  I never ate them for a meal but used them for the fish batter.

Years ago, I packed fresh eggs by using 2 styrofoam cartons per dozen, and double wrapping them. I taped the cartons shut, and put the whole thing in a 2-gal ziploc. I carried large eggs. Had a few minor cracks, used them first or tossed them according to the dictates of judgement.
Now, I carry powdered eggs from a restuarant supply. I like to watch the rookies search the foodbox when I ask them for a dozen eggs. ;D ;D

You've all been very helpful. I'm sure I will enjoy the eggs too.

Most trips I carry in a dozen medium sized eggs in a plastic egg container and eat them the first morning.  Never had one break.

I gave up on eggs long ago because of the breakage.  I bring Egg Beaters.  They work fine for omelettes or for adding to pancake batter.  The eggs in a Nalgene bottle idea sounds like it might work out about the same.

I have had fresh eggs last several days, even when it is very hot out.  Extra packing care and putting them on top of the cook kit or some other pack keeps them on your mind so you don't lean on them while portaging.  Salmonella is more rampant than you think...one book I read said it is endemic in the commercial chicken houses and they can't get rid of it.  That's why all the warnings about cooking eggs until they are not runny....as long as completely cooked, even if with Salmonella, they will not make you sick (no runny yolks allowed).  Putting them in their packing, in a cloth bag and dunking the bag routinely keeps them wet, and the evaporation lowers the temperature around them, especially when hung or set in the shade at camp.  IC

wrote on Jul 1^st, 2004 at 11:03am:

If you can track down farm-fresh eggs that haven't been refrigerated, they'll keep a lot longer than the store bought ones.

Hey CanoeJack.... How do you know this?  I've heard this before but am curious as to how you (or anyone else) would know except by personal experience and/or reading it someplace.

I'd like to take eggs on our canoe trips but would probably want to use them early in the trip.

i put fresh eggs in the plastic egg holders and then put that within a one gallon ziplock - we had eggs break once, and as others have mentioned, that is not fun in july

as far as them keeping, i have used eggs as much as 5 days into a trip - i give them a flash boil (10 seconds) before we go - it doesn't cook them, but based on discussions with my uncles (a doc) he says that can help them keep longer, and potentially kill off diseases

wrote on Aug 4^th, 2004 at 3:00pm:

i give them a flash boil (10 seconds) before we go

I thought gold only came from geese! What a great idea!
I have dried eggs in the past (some danger there), but
will definitely give some fresh eggs the flash treatment on
my next trip.

-aj

one final reply on the eggs - i personally haven't tried this, but have been "assured" by a friend that it will preserve eggs (no promise on the diease issue, but i presume that if you are fully cooking your eggs it would be no problem)....

Rub the eggs with vaseline.

apparently the reason that eggs go bad is that they lose mosture through pourous holes in the shell.  by rubbing with vaseline these holes are plugged, and eggs stay good.  if using this method the eggs should be rotated once a week (to keep the yolks suspended) and can theoretically be kept for up to 6 months if they are in relatively cool surroundings.

Just got back from a week and used a one quart wide mouthed Nalgene bottle for egg storage.  On Friday before our trip I cracked 22 large eggs and put them in the bottle without breaking the yolks.  Sunday morning I poured out 10 eggs for breakfast for 5.  Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 eggs each for pancakes.  Thursday, the last 10 were scrambled.  Worked fine.

My food pack has a section of frozen food at the bottom, with 2 quart bottles of ice (my half gallon bottle disappeared.)  It is always in the shade during the day and covered with a double sided reflective insulator.  The frozen stuff is thawed within a few days, but the whole pack stays cool most of the week.  Temps in the low to mid 70's helped.

Just got back from a week trip to Quetico & used fresh eggs almost every day.  Besides fried & scrambled, we used them in the hush puppies & cooking.  They are also really good (and easy) when hard boiled.  We've boiled them the night before we're going to break camp and then all you have to do is shell them & you've got a quick, protein rich breakfast to start you off.  We just pack them in the plastic egg carriers, tape them shut with duct tape, put them in zip-lock bags and make sure everyone knows which pack the eggs are in (for that little extra TLC).  First morning in we checked for any cracked ones and those are used that morning.  Out of 4 dozen, I think we only had 3 or 4 cracked ones!  

We have used fresh eggs every year for our boundary waters trips and could not imagine what breakfeast would be like without them.  We use medium store bought in a cardbourd container wraped in duct tape.  I tried using a hard plastic egg container this last year but only had more breakage then with the cardboard containers.

We have taken fresh eggs for many years with no problems, except for occasional breakage.  We buy medium eggs in a styrofoam carton (the last thing we buy just before our departure), double wrap the carton in two brown paper grocery bags and duct tape it underneath the stern seat of the canoe.  It stays in place while portaging.

In camp we always are careful to set the egg bag in a shady spot, and we plan to use the eggs within 2-3 days if the temperatures are in the 80's or above during the day.  During cool weeks they last longer, planning two or three per day.  There are just two of us, so we only take one dozen and then use BackPackers Pantry Denver Omelette for our remaining breakfasts.

On the rare occasion when breakage occurs we have an omelette that evening!

My daughter in Chicago can get pasteurized eggs and I am sure they would be safer, but I haven't seen these in the grocery stores at Grand Marais or Ely.

id say ur best bet is to boil them first, then u don't have to worry about them breaking. plus a egg is a egg right? it'll be good no matter how u eat it. after those first few days

To all the "Ely Regulars"....

Are there any farmers near Ely that sell farm fresh eggs?

WindLaker