Old-school ways to make century eggs?

[Guest guest]

I've been curious to try making " century " eggs - a Chinese method of curing eggs

in alkali. Some modern methods involve lye and even plastic coatings, but I read

that the earliest technique was to pack them in alkaline clay. I already have

some bentonite clay, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to do it,

or how high the risk of spoilage is with this method. I have backyard chickens,

so I can potentially get very fresh high-quality eggs.

The modern methods sometimes involve tea, salt, wood ash and rice chaff. I could

incorporate some of these ingredients too, but simpler would be much preferable,

and I'd like to avoid using grains. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike