freezing eggs

[David McKay]

Hi Folks:

I think I read somewhere that freezing an egg yolk would ruin it's binding strength. Do any of you know if this is true or not? I was of course thinking, that if I had a source of real farm fresh eggs, and it wouldn't hurt them to be frozen, I could have a supply of farm fresh eggs in my freezer. :-) David

[Rosemary]

I seem to remember that freezing yolks does not change the protein as there is so little water in yolks that they do not develop big ice crystals which would dehydrate the protein. If you freeze egg whites, they can have big ice crystals grow which dehydrates the protein and may partially denature it.

I think the thing to do would be to seperate the yolks from the whites and beat them a bit, then freeze them in small ice cube trays so you could take out just a small portion at a time. They would also need to be protected from the air, so they would not oxidize, either. So a vacuum bag sealer for individule cubes would be great or tiny tapered glass freezing jars. I have only seen 1 cup size as the smallest and they are hard to find. The pint jars are more common.

My local restaurant supply sells bags of frozen yolk for bakers as well as bags of frozen beaten whole eggs to make scrambled eggs from. Very convenient for large group cooking. I don't remember seeing any egg white there.

[David McKay]

Thanks for your reply Rosemary. Actually, the reason I have been thinking about freezing eggs is that one of several froze in my little studio fridge. I noticed a crack in the shell and assumed that the freezing expanded the egg and caused the crack. Maybe it was already cracked and that caused it to freeze while the others did not.
Anyway I guess it is time to experiment with frozen yolks but I am not quite sure how to go about it since I would'nt want to try it on a "good" work in progress. I am also thinking about freezing the entire egg and then letting it defrost overnight before breaking it open and seperating the yolk from the white. My reason for that is to eliminate any more air from reaching the yolk. David