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[blacktail2]

Hi guys !
            I know this topic has been beat to death but i had a bit of a problem water hardening Spring eggs. I got into some good fishing on the Vedder last week and decided to Bonk a "Big Ole Sow Belly". I opened her up and the eggs were still on the skein but loose enough i could pick them off one by one. I followed the recipe below. But after the initial soaking in river water for the suggested 12 to 18 hours well over half of the eggs turned white. They sure had hardened but they appeared as though they had been hard boiled. I cut one open and the contents came out in a thick white paste. So to make a long story short i did not end up with many eggs. I am thinking the problem was that they were still attached to the skein and were not ripe enough even though they were quite loose and i could pick them off by hand. When they were soaked in water maybe they absorbed some of the water before hardening? Any ideas fellow fishers?

you will need.... about 4 cups of course salt
1 large clean margarine or yogurt container
a 1 gallon clean milk jug
a metal strainer
procure powder
and clean fresh water, distilled if you have it but my results were with river water, then tap water.

This recipe is for the quantity of eggs from 1, 6 lbs pink salmon. WILL ONLY WORK FOR LOOSE EGGS, NOT SKEINED EGGS .. ALSO does not require procure or anything else other than the water and salt. I simply use the procure as a colouring agent, I'm sure it benefits the cure in other ways but is by no means necessary.

STEP 1 : empty the loose eggs from the fish into a large ziploc (always have these for roe anyways) and fill with river water and drain as neccesary to remove any blood. water inziploc should appear near gin clear with the eggs inside. leave as much water as ou can in the bag and close. carefully take it home with you.
STEP 2 : Allow the eggs to it in the river water in the fridge for 12 hours (24 is recommended for chum/spring eggs)
STEP 3 : pour eggs out into metal stainer... handle them carefully at this point they will be soft.
STEP 4 : place eggs into a margarine container and add 2 to 3 teaspoons of your desired color of procure powder... i used red hot double stuff.... and 1/4 cup coarse salt, then very gently stir till thoroughly disolved/mixed... add a bit of fresh cold water if need be to help it mix up nice.
STEP 5: pour 2 cups coarse salt into the 1 gallon milk jug and fill 3/4 full with cold water. put on lid and shake like crazy, disolving as much salt as you can.... there will be a lot of undisolved salt.... this is good.
STEP 6: back to the eggs.... they should only soak in the procure for up to 2 hours.... I only waited 1 hour to achieve the juicy pink colour i got in the pics...... pour the eggs into the metal strainer and rinse well under the tap with cold water. Once rinsed they need to go into the milk jug full of salt water. Once the eggs are in the jug, top it off with cold water and give a gentle shake to mix the contents well. put it in the fridge over night... 12 hours is good. 24 hours for larger eggs such as chum/spring
STEP 7: after storing in the salt water over night they are essentially done at this point and ready to use. I generally drain them out of the milk jug and refill it with the remaining salt ( 1 3/4 cups) and fill it 1/2 full of water and just leave the eggs in there... for 6 months if need be.
here is the pics... sorry i didn't take any during the process... mostly just the end result .. BUT CHECK OUT the pics with the glass of water sitting on top of the eggs on the counter..... you get a nicew water hardened colored egg .... perfect for juicy roe bags.

ENJOY  

[silver ghost]

Hey im curious as to how they turned out, could you try uploading the pics again? thank you.

[blacktail2]

They didnt turn out well at all ! I lost over half of the eggs. As i mentioned in the previous post they were not quite ripe enough so i thought i would be able to pluck them one by one from the skein and still use them as per the recipe attached to my last post. But i guess that was not the case, the eggs hardened like they were supposed to but over half of them had turned white and when i poked one the contents all came out in a white paste almost like a hard bolied egg. So i had to discard the eggs that were spoiled. It is rather confusing because a small amount of them turned out. I was hoping that someone would let me know where i went wrong, i am the last guy to ask for advise on preparing single eggs. Lets hope someone can tell me where i went wrong.

                                                                    blacktail2

[EZ_Rolling]

the only thing I see as a problem with your eggs may be the use of tap water, always used distilled water when doing anything with eggs.

[blacktail2]

Hey EZ_Rolling;
                     I am new here and i should have been a little more clear, i followed the recipe to a tee with the exception of the tap water. I actually used river water and before i got to step three the eggs had the biscuit. I am not really sure where i went wrong here with the exception of maybe using eggs that were still attached to the skein, they were loose and i thought they were loose enough so i painstakingly plucked every egg fromt he Skein and after about three hours i noticed many of them had or were turning white. I waited for the 18 hour mark and as mentioned over half maybe two thirds of the eggs looked like thay had been hard boiled the remainder were as they should have been. I felt kind of bad the only reason i harvestd the fish was for the roe and something to smoke. If i had have know the end results i would have released her. The saving grace was she was hatchery and i smoked some and have a little in the deep freeze. So i am at a loss as to what happened. I heard somewhere that you could not use eggs that were still attached to the skein but i didnt find that out until it was far too late. So lts hole that was the reason, absolutely no tap water touched those eggs at all. The only other thing i can think of is they went from her belly to a ziplock bag into the fridge for a day and then i started the curing procedure.
                        

[greyghost]

Ouch... those nice loose eggs still attached to the skein before you plucked them off would have been "simply put" DEADLY if cured properly. A little dye job and borax. Just think of how nuts the Coho would have been when seeing that roe pulsate through the slick. I don't even want to tell you what the early steelhead would have done seeing that in another month. Just remember if they are not singles why force mother nature into it. chomp chomp! 

[blacktail2]

Finally figured it out ! I guess one is supposed to read and when you think you have it re read the instructions !. In the original recipe it states in bold letters this recipe only works for single eggs.This is true i got some single eggs from a buddy at a hatchery and tried to water harden eggs a second time. Well guess what, it worked and worked well. I cannot break the eggs squeezing them between the fingers. I threw one at the wall as hard as i could and it bounced back. I added some procure dye to the recipe as suggested and they are beautiful... Thanks to the recipe provider excellent