Pautzke Egg Recharge

By Nick Petosa | 03/23/2012

One rainy evening I was hanging out in my garage and getting my fishing gear ready for the next mornings trip. I had 4 containers of eggs left over from fishing earlier in the day and I decided to use them for tomorrow. The eggs were pre-cut and cured in Pautzke’s natural colored Borx O’ Fire. I thought I was ready to go… that is until the rain turned into a downpour. I knew that this kind of rain would cause the water to gain some serious color. At that point I came to the realization that my natural colored eggs would no longer make the cut.

Sure, I could have taken some more brighter colored eggs out of my bait freezer… but I didn’t want to waste the ones I had already thawed. Then an idea came to me… what if there was some sort of way to revamp your already cured eggs? Some way to recolor and recharge them? I was after something brighter; something to give the Steelhead some visual candy. That night resulted in my discovery of a hot new technique for recharging eggs!

The nice thing about being a Pautzke Pro-staff, is that I have a nice supply of product that I can experiment with. I decided to take a gamble and see what kind of results I could get with Pautzke’s Fire Brine. Fire Brine an extremely versatile product. It makes a great colorant with it’s numerous color options, and it also works as an excellent cure.

When I first started using Fire Brine, I pretty much limited myself to the Orange and Red colors. These two fundamental colors work great, however when I incorporated Borx O’ Fire it opened up an endless possibility of colors. At that moment I knew I had stumbled upon something great.

The combination of Fire Brine and Borx O’ Fire allow you to create your own customized colors, such as:

  • Flame
  • Fluorescent Red
  • Fluorescent Red Chartreuse
  • Natural Orange
  • Fluorescent Orange
  • Fluorescent Orange Chartreuse

And the list goes on!

As a fisherman it is always important to prepare for the river conditions. Dealing with off color conditions? Try a Fluorescent Red Chartreuse mixture. The Chartreuse Fire Brine has large quantities of UV, which adds that extra flare during off-color conditions. With Pautzke Fire Brine and Borx O’ Fire, I can create just about any color I need. People often ask me if I ever color my eggs purple or blue. I usually chuckle and say “nope!”, however these colors do work well for herring.

Not all of my curing experiments work out the way I plan, but I got really lucky with this one. Not only is it simple to do, but it’s economical if you don’t do not have a lot of eggs, but you need to change color. Most importantly, it catches fish.

Here are the steps.

Ingredients:

  • Borx O’ Fire
  • Fire Brine
  • Eggs
  • Bucket / Ziploc and something to stir with
  • Colander

(The main ingredients)

Step One | Choosing Your Eggs:

Keep in mind the natural laws of color: You cannot turn a darker shade light by adding more shade. In egg color terms, you cannot turn a red egg orange, or an orange egg natural. This recharge is only effective for creating a more vibrant/darker color from a lighter colored egg.

It does not matter whether your eggs are thawed or frozen, the recharge will still work regardless.

(A frozen block of eggs cured in Borx O’ Fire’s Natural)

 

Step Two | Creating The Mixture:

I prefer to use buckets or plastic storage bins because they have enough volume to fully saturate your eggs and allow them to absorb the nutrients of the coloring/cure agent. Understand that it is okay to use Ziploc bags if need be, especially if the amounts of eggs you have are too small for buckets.

A basic brine consists of 1 bottle of Fire Brine for every 1 cup of Borx O’ Fire.

Once you have created the mixture, make sure to stir it for around 3 minutes. You want to try and dissolve the Borx O’ Fire as much as possible.

(A container of the stirred Fire Brine and Borx O’ Fire mixture)

 

Step Three | Combining the Eggs with the Mixture:

The next step is self explanatory–take your eggs and place them in them mixture. Make sure the eggs are completely saturated, otherwise you will need to add more brine.

Optimal time for the egg recharge mixture to process is around 2-4 hours, however if you forget about the eggs, they can last in the brine for days and still be successful. I speak of this from personal experience because I have left the eggs unattended in brine for 5 days and still caught fish on them!

(Eggs in the brine mixture. *Note* This photo does not show the eggs completely

submerged as recommended in the directions. The purpose of this is so that you can

see the color variation of the eggs and the brine)

Step Four | Draining the Eggs:

Once you are satisfied with the length of time your eggs have spent in the brine, it is time to drain them. The draining process typically takes anywhere from two to four hours, however they can be left overnight.

(Eggs draining after being processed in the brine)

 

Now it is up to you to experiment with your own Pautzke Fire Brine and Borx O’ Fire custom color combinations.

You got the juice now, kid!

(The end result!)

 

Until next time,

Nick Petosa