Jeff’s answer to “I'm am going into the kitchen RIGHT NOW, and if your egg-steaming method is right, you will be my n…” > Likes and Comments
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Worked like a freaking charm. I peeled a few as soon as they cooled down, and then a few hours later, all under running water. They only thing is, all had the divot at the end, where the air bubble is.
Hurrah! This is good.
You can avoid the divot ("flat bottom") by dropping the eggs into cold water right after they're done cooking. The divot is created by the egg white contracting back (presumably air inside the white contracting). Shocking them in cold water causes the whole egg to contract, as opposed to slowly pulling back from one end!
Hmm, I just did that this morning, a bowl of ice water, and all of them had it.
Interesting. To confirm: hot eggs, right out of the steam, straight into the ice water?
I could see older eggs already having a divot in them—water from the egg white evaporates over time—so fresher eggs should in theory have less of a divot. You're going to send me running to the kitchen here! Musstttt.... Resisttttt....
Ha!! I have fresher eggs. Will try this afternoon.
OK, I made them with very, very fresh eggs. Nine minutes is perfect for the kind of a egg I like — slightly creamy in the middle. But there still was the divot, it was less, absolutely. It's also a bit harder to peel because it's fresh. But the white didn't put when the shell was peeled.
This sounds about like what I would expect. The divot won't go away completely, but it should be much less than a slowly-cooled one. Fun visual proof, if you like: slow-cooling a few and rapidly-cooling a few in the same batch.
The peelability of the egg relates to the pH—which is correlated with the age—not with the water loss, which is also correlated with age. You can speed up the pH shift by keeping the eggs warmer (i.e. leaving them out on the counter overnight). Generally not recommended for safety reasons (salmonella), but given that they're hard cooked... well; I'm not a food safety expert so that's something one would want to run by a microbiologist, technically. :) The pH change is due to dissolved carbon dioxide in the white, which will slowly come out of saturation and change the pH.
Anyway, glad to hear the eggs are peeling! Enjoy.
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David
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Nov 13, 2015 06:15AM
Worked like a freaking charm. I peeled a few as soon as they cooled down, and then a few hours later, all under running water. They only thing is, all had the divot at the end, where the air bubble is.
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Hurrah! This is good.You can avoid the divot ("flat bottom") by dropping the eggs into cold water right after they're done cooking. The divot is created by the egg white contracting back (presumably air inside the white contracting). Shocking them in cold water causes the whole egg to contract, as opposed to slowly pulling back from one end!
Hmm, I just did that this morning, a bowl of ice water, and all of them had it.
Interesting. To confirm: hot eggs, right out of the steam, straight into the ice water?I could see older eggs already having a divot in them—water from the egg white evaporates over time—so fresher eggs should in theory have less of a divot. You're going to send me running to the kitchen here! Musstttt.... Resisttttt....
Ha!! I have fresher eggs. Will try this afternoon.
OK, I made them with very, very fresh eggs. Nine minutes is perfect for the kind of a egg I like — slightly creamy in the middle. But there still was the divot, it was less, absolutely. It's also a bit harder to peel because it's fresh. But the white didn't put when the shell was peeled.
This sounds about like what I would expect. The divot won't go away completely, but it should be much less than a slowly-cooled one. Fun visual proof, if you like: slow-cooling a few and rapidly-cooling a few in the same batch. The peelability of the egg relates to the pH—which is correlated with the age—not with the water loss, which is also correlated with age. You can speed up the pH shift by keeping the eggs warmer (i.e. leaving them out on the counter overnight). Generally not recommended for safety reasons (salmonella), but given that they're hard cooked... well; I'm not a food safety expert so that's something one would want to run by a microbiologist, technically. :) The pH change is due to dissolved carbon dioxide in the white, which will slowly come out of saturation and change the pH.
Anyway, glad to hear the eggs are peeling! Enjoy.
