Management
P-87
Poultry for Profit
Cooperative Extension Service PURDUE UNIVERSITY Lafayette, Indiana 
Egg Sweating Problem
by Joe W. Sicer, Animal Sciences Department
Handling eggs that are wet with "sweat” will probably mean soiled eggs and, far worse, may cause the development of rots. Sweating can be prevented if you control temperatures or humidity.
Cool eggs will sweat whenever they are abruptly exposed to warmer air carrying a high enough humidity. The danger from handling sweating eggs is that the moisture on the shell, when agitated by handling may cause bacteria or molds from your hands or on the egg shell to become water borne and pass through the shell pores to the inside of the egg. Egg spoilage could easily be the result. Also, eggs that are handled while wet will probably dry with soiled splotches showing on them.
What is Egg Sweating?
Sweating is actually the condensation of moisture from the surrounding air on the cold egg shell. It is just like the sweating of a pitcher of ice water on a summer day. Moisture is not drawn from the inside of the egg. It is not a true sweating process such as occurs with humans.
Technically, the sweating of eggs depends upon what is called the dew point of the surrounding air. By definition, the dew Point is the temperature at which the moisture
 in the air will condense out as liquid water. The dew point rises as the relative humidity of the air rises, until at 100%, relative humidity the dew point and the air temperature are the same.
The dew point under any set of conditions can be determined by applying certain rules of physics. The accompanying chart will help you find the dew point by following the right lines. You must know the temperature and the relative humidity.
In a poultryman’s language, if the temperature of the egg holding room is below the dew point for the air into which the eggs are to be brought, the eggs will sweat. The colder the eggs, the higher the air temperature into which the eggs are brought and the higher the relative humidity, the bigger will be the sweating problem.
Sweating can be a really big problem in hot, humid weather because the spread is so great between the temperature of a refrigerated egg holding room and the outside air.
In winter with smaller differences in temperature and with the relative humidity of heated rooms usually comparatively low, sweating is not much of a problem.
Why is Egg Sweating Harmful?
Even clean eggs have some bacteria and