Good news though, egg powder is still available as a four canister pack online from Farm Pride, just share it with friends if you want to purchase some. I can get egg powder from my work place as I work in a food manufacturing plant and the company uses this ingredient in some products, but if I do that I have to order 15 kilograms of powder, so the quantity is way too much – a side business perhaps ... So really the four canister pack is a reasonable purchase. One alternative is to buy a 160 gram pouch of scrambled egg mix – cough, only 53% egg powder - from Back Country, good for scrambled eggs but not good if you're intolerant to milk or you want to use eggs for a recipe, like a cake or pancakes, or even milk-free scrambled eggs. Or you can buy a minimum of 1 kilogram from Australian Egg. If that is too much still, what do you do? You can dehydrate your own. Let’s discuss this option.

DehydratingThere is a fair bit of information on the net about dehydrating eggs. It can be risky and if you don’t do it correctly, you are at risk of salmonella poisoning, or gastroenteritis and I am sure you don’t want that in the bush, no way. One science journal I was reading stated that there were an estimated on a global scale 155,000 deaths annually related to salmonella infection.

Lucky for you, a good friend of mine has trialled drying eggs and I analysed them in a laboratory. The results were pretty good

which means the product is safe to eat and if stored correctly you will get a long time – say about a year or more storage if stored correctly and the method used is reliable.

A bit of science jargon first. Moisture content means how much water is in a product – good to know as it can determine shelf life. Water activity (Aw) is the measure of how much of that moisture content is free, which means microorganisms, which need water to grow, can grow in this free water. Salmonella can grow if the moisture and water content are right for this type of microbe. If a product is dried above 95% the product is typically safe and would have a good shelf life at that dryness without posing a microbiological risk. Typical manufactured egg comes in at Aw 0.40 and around 5% moisture with a shelf life of a couple of years. Read more about Aw, salmonella and low-moisture foods in the science journal. So what are the results? Well, the egg results came back with Aw 0.52, and moisture of 6.52%.

On the Aw side, it is pretty good for the home dehydrated method. Salmonella starts growing at Aw 0.93 so this result shows that this home dehydrating method is safe on the microbiological side of things. On the moisture side, 93.48% of water has been removed. As stated, in the right storage condition this will last a while.

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Dehydrating eggs There is a lot of information on the web, such as Tactical intelligence, Prairie Homestead and Little House Living. The link to Backwoodshome is on the money, seems she has done her research and has got the facts right, the wet/dry method is the way to go. However, the home method used for this trial was based on the Dirtygourmet method, but the both methods are similar to each other. The other thing I can suggest, and was done in this home trial is to lift the eggs and break them up during the drying process. This creates more surface area, thus better drying properties and a safer, longer lasting product. Take note though, salmonella can create a cross-contamination risk later on as salmonella can survive in variable conditions such as optimal storage temperature, or poor cleaning of equipment. Clean your equipment well to avoid any cross contact as it is what you can’t see that does make a difference.

StorageIn storage, the egg could take up moisture which could change the ability for microbes to grow and obviously affect the shelf life. Store the powdered egg in an airtight jar, with minimal head space for air to accumulate and away from sunlight, like in the pantry, temperature depending you could get about a year out of it. Vacuum sealing is a great method of storage as it removes all the air; this could last a good year or two. Another way of storage is in a freezer bags with all the air taken out wrapped well; that way it will last a few years in the freezer. Try to have the storage jar or freezer bag as close to as the amount of product as possible.

So now what can you do with all this egg powder? I am glad you asked. Here is a scrambled egg recipe. Go on, get drying and go on a hike. See you out there somewhere.

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Recipe for Scrambled Eggs

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