0630 Hours, 12 September
Subject egg: small, brown shell.* Age: apparently laid sometime between 0700 and 1230 hours on 11 Sep.
Boiled: 12 Sep, 0645 hours, age at boiling: Less than 24 hours. (Age of chicken: approx 6 mos.)
Place of Boiling: Mountain Home, elevataion 3180 feet.
Boiling method: 2 Qt Revereware saucepan, 1/2 full of water. Brought to boil. Egg carefully placed in already boiling water, boiled for 12 minutes. egg removed from boiling water and placed in approx 2 gal chilled water with ice. Chilled for approximately 7 minutes.
Other conditions:
Red hat: Not worn.
Astrological Sign of Boiler: Capricorn
Urgency of Need for egg: Moderate (hungry, in a hurry, but Had Other Options for Breakfast)
Initial peel: Tapped top of egg to obtain crack. Peeled under cold running water. (The hydraulic action of the water aids in wedging the shell from the boiled egg surface)
Results: significant, although not catastrophic, sticking. Some areas peel fine. Still, some sticking occurred.
Egg: delicious.
* Yet another factor to be tested: eggshell color...
Friday, September 12, 2008
Egg Freshness as a Factor
One claim I hear quite frequently is that the freshness of the eggs is what determines how easily they will peel, the most common claim being the older the egg, the easier they peel.
It's pretty hard to determine exactly how old an egg is, though. Do you start counting when you buy them at the store? What about a carton of eggs that could be mixed- 7 eggs laid on one day, and 5 the next?
One suggestion was to get a chicken, and then boil the eggs right after they were laid, gradually keeping the eggs longer and boiling older and older eggs to check the results.
I have since learned to be careful with what I suggest:
I guess testing for the age of the egg will be easier than I thought.
It's pretty hard to determine exactly how old an egg is, though. Do you start counting when you buy them at the store? What about a carton of eggs that could be mixed- 7 eggs laid on one day, and 5 the next?
One suggestion was to get a chicken, and then boil the eggs right after they were laid, gradually keeping the eggs longer and boiling older and older eggs to check the results.
I have since learned to be careful with what I suggest:
I guess testing for the age of the egg will be easier than I thought.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Factors Controlling Peelability of Hard Boiled Eggs: Some Questions and Hypotheses
What primarily determines how a boiled egg will peel: either (1)smoothly, or (2)with the white sticking to bits of the shell?
Some Assertions I Have Heard:
1. It is the Cooking Method. (there are several, and contradictory)
2. It is the Cooling Method.
3. It is the Age of the Egg. (as in the time elapsed from when it is laid (layed?) to when it is boiled. Again, contradictory, from fresh is best, to oldest is best.
4. It is how soon after boiling that the peeling attempt is made....seems to be a consistent assertion that the longer after boiling, the better they will peel.
Some Assertions I Have Not Heard, But Which May Have Some Relevance:
1. The purity or hardness of the water
2. The altitude at which one boils the eggs
3. Whether the eggshells crack when dropped into the boiling or cooling water
There also may be factors no one may have considered, such as:
1. Whether or not one wears a red hat while the eggs are boiling.
2. The astrological signs of (1) the egg, (2) the chicken, and (3) the person boiling the eggs
3. The Boiler's Karma
4. The urgency with which one needs the eggs, and needs them to peel nicley.
Some Assertions I Have Heard:
1. It is the Cooking Method. (there are several, and contradictory)
2. It is the Cooling Method.
3. It is the Age of the Egg. (as in the time elapsed from when it is laid (layed?) to when it is boiled. Again, contradictory, from fresh is best, to oldest is best.
4. It is how soon after boiling that the peeling attempt is made....seems to be a consistent assertion that the longer after boiling, the better they will peel.
Some Assertions I Have Not Heard, But Which May Have Some Relevance:
1. The purity or hardness of the water
2. The altitude at which one boils the eggs
3. Whether the eggshells crack when dropped into the boiling or cooling water
There also may be factors no one may have considered, such as:
1. Whether or not one wears a red hat while the eggs are boiling.
2. The astrological signs of (1) the egg, (2) the chicken, and (3) the person boiling the eggs
3. The Boiler's Karma
4. The urgency with which one needs the eggs, and needs them to peel nicley.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Peelability of Hard Boiled Eggs as Determined by Cooking Method: A Matter of Some Controversy
"You know, if you plunged these eggs into cold water after you cooked them, they would peel easily and not come off with the shell, " she said to me casually, as we prepared for yet another ascent of Steel Mountain.
"Well," I replied, "I've tried all sorts of ways of cooking them, and have never found any that produced consistently peelable eggs. Some times they peel differently even when cooked in the same batch".......
So began a fairly spirited debate between my friend and me on what causes the shells to stick to boiled eggs sometimes. She insisted it was some lapse in the proper cooking method, as observed by her: place eggs in boiling water, boil for twelve minutes, then immediately plunge into ice water.
I peeled two eggs for breakfast the next morning, from the same, albeit 'incorrectly' cooked batch, and observed something I thought quite detrimental to her argument: one peeled perfectly, and the other, in chunks. Thus, two eggs, cooked identically, had opposite peelability characteristics. I immediately texted these results to her, causing her to respond, quite correctly, that two eggs did not a proper study make. What was valid in my assertion, though, was the negation of the premise:
p>q
If p, then q.
If you cook the eggs the same way, they will peel the same way.
if p>q,
and you observe q to be false (~q)
(the eggs peeled differently)
and you know p to be true
(I cooked the eggs the same way)
then the statement must be false.
"Well," I replied, "I've tried all sorts of ways of cooking them, and have never found any that produced consistently peelable eggs. Some times they peel differently even when cooked in the same batch".......
So began a fairly spirited debate between my friend and me on what causes the shells to stick to boiled eggs sometimes. She insisted it was some lapse in the proper cooking method, as observed by her: place eggs in boiling water, boil for twelve minutes, then immediately plunge into ice water.
I peeled two eggs for breakfast the next morning, from the same, albeit 'incorrectly' cooked batch, and observed something I thought quite detrimental to her argument: one peeled perfectly, and the other, in chunks. Thus, two eggs, cooked identically, had opposite peelability characteristics. I immediately texted these results to her, causing her to respond, quite correctly, that two eggs did not a proper study make. What was valid in my assertion, though, was the negation of the premise:
p>q
If p, then q.
If you cook the eggs the same way, they will peel the same way.
if p>q,
and you observe q to be false (~q)
(the eggs peeled differently)
and you know p to be true
(I cooked the eggs the same way)
then the statement must be false.
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