Hi! I am curious about store bought pasteurized liquid egg whites. I've never used them, always used fresh. But recently watched Modern Buttercream with Joshua Russell on Craftsy (it was great and free!!), and he recommends using the pasteurized egg whites for his SMBC.
So I go out and buy mine at the local Walmart, the Great Value brand 100% egg whites (it was between that and EggBeaters). They are a very strange opaque, cloudy color. Josh's looked like regular egg whites, pale yellow, clear.
Does anyone have any advice on this? As far as, should I look for another brand to use in SMBC? Or will the GV brand even whip up into a meringue? Thanks!

I use pasteurized egg whites for my IMBC all the time. Occassionally I do get a bad batch that won't whip up and I just end up using it in white cake recipes. For the most part though they look exactly like you've described and work perfectly. Some people will tell you that these aren't suitable in meringues, but this has not been my experience at all.
I have learned the hard way that if you freeze them and defrost later, they do not work!

littlestruedel: thank you! You've given me the confidence to try them out! I was about to just get the fresh eggs out after seeing what the carton eggs looked like: practically like grapefruit juice!

Make sure to shake your carton well, sometimes that makes a difference too! Good luck!

Just another one of those food safety issues... pasteurized whites are only more safe, not completely safe so you still need the magic 160 degrees. The only completely safe eggs are the ones pasteurized in their shell, per the Egg Board, USDA, and FDA.

Well, I used the GV Pasteurized 100% egg whites, and my SMBC turned out wonderful! But, this might have been a fluke, it took over 20 minutes for the whites to whip up into stiff peaks!! It took so long that my bowl of whites and sugar went from warm to cool and then started going back to warm! I ended up putting a bag of frozen veggies under the bowl...and they never got as stiff as I can get with fresh egg whites.
But...in the end, it turned into SMBC

That's what happens to me when I get a bad batch of egg whites. It will whip up, but as soon as I pour the sugar syrup in (I make IMBC) it turns into soup and takes a long time to whip up. It also never gets stiff enough. Still usuable, but not the perfect result I was looking for.

I would try again with a new carton of eggwhites. When it works properly (which is most of the time) it doesn't react any differently then eggwhites out of the shell.

I have read on the web that pasteurized whites take much longer to process. I have three KA mixers, a Heavy Duty (15 and agelessly perfect), a Pro610, and an Artisan. I cannot make European buttercreams in the Artisan because the motor is too small. It does exactly what you all are describing with regular whites, so the pasteurized whites are compounding the issue.

Check the motor in the head of the mixer. After awhile, the motor starts putting out quite a bit of heat between it and the top of the bowl, melting your buttercream. I had to wipe down the head with cool, damp cloths, and use the frozen vegetables.

Make sure you check your carton also, many regular store-bought egg whites say on the carton "not suitable for meringues". I don't use them so I don't know which brand is.

The Walmart brand of egg whites never whipped up for me. I know the carton says it's pure egg whites, but if they don't whip, that cannot be. The Egg Beaters brand is the same way for me. On the other hand, the Meijer store brand whips up just fine. I have no idea what the difference is, only that there is one- and it's a big difference for me.

Thanks so much for this post! I took the same class and had the exact same problem. I thought it was something I'd done. I've never had a problem with pasteurized whites whipping up before, but it took literally an hour and a half of mixing to get to stiff peaks (that was the second batch, I got so annoyed with the whole thing I was determined to see how long it would take). I was using GV pasteurized whites. I did eventually get a decent SMBC, but it took ages. I will try one more time with a different carton, and after that I'm giving up.