Kitchen Challenge: Hard-Boiled Eggs, Part IV and Conclusion

Here we are, gentle reader: the fourth and final week of the Grand Egg Experiment!

Over the past three weeks, we have walked the path together on the journey to hard-boiled egg enlightenment. So far, I've discovered that the method of making hard-boiled eggs that I've been using for the last two decades can definitely be improved upon. With the conclusion of this fourth week of testing, not only will I be able to draw conclusions about the three experimental methods I've selected, but I will also be able to look at the results over time, thus adding a fourth dimension to the experiment. If you remember from the original post, I was led to believe that older eggs made easier-to-peel eggs once they were hard-boiled. We'll finally get to put that premise to rest.

Two interesting items I've picked up on over the last four weeks are this: the shells feel more fragile, the older the egg, and the airspace at the wider end of the egg gets larger, the older the egg. Now, you may very well already know this, but for the sake of creating pleasant looking eggs for dishes such as Deviled Eggs, it's good to keep this in mind if you're looking for the perfectly shaped hard-boiled egg, too. Hopefully, as a result of my experiment, you'll be able to get perfectly peel-able and visually perfect eggs, no matter how old they are.

Without further ado, here are the results of week number four:

Control Group

6 cups of cold tap water
Time to come to boil: 11 minutes, 58 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Control group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 8
* Outer appearance: 8
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

Two of the eggs peeled like a complete dream, but the third one, which also brought down the appearance score, was a touch difficult, but not nearly as difficult as any of the other week's control groups. I should also mention that one of today's control group eggs actually cracked during the boiling process. While the gentle boil for one minute did nothing to make it any worse, this is significant to note since the eggshells over the four week test period have seemed to get thinner over time. This might pricking the end of the egg (no matter which method you use) make sense as it would relieve the air pressure and not cause the egg's shell to crack further.



Commercial Egg Cooker

Time in the egg cooker: ~17 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes
Water adjustment: - 1/2 tablespoon

Commercial Egg Cooker ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 10
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 9
* Taste: 10

What can I say about the peeling and appearance of the Cuisinart Egg Cooker? It has been nearly flawless over the past four weeks. As impressive as that it, it isn't surprising. Cuisinart is a pretty solid brand and I would hope they wouldn't put out a uni-tasker device without it doing its one job nearly perfectly. The only two downsides I see to the egg cooker are the fact that you can only do seven eggs at once and I can get a slightly more tender egg when I do them using one of the other methods (in fact, ALL of the other methods) that I've been trying these past four weeks. That being said, the "set it and forget it" mentality certainly makes this device hugely desirable in many peoples' eyes.



Baking Soda In The Water

6 cups of cold tap water
1 teaspoon Arm & Hammer baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Time to come to boil: 11 minutes, 35 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Baking Soda In The Water group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 9
* Outer appearance: 9
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

The baking soda eggs this week were just shy of being a perfect peel and a perfect appearance. Overall, this method has done quite well, but other than the first week, has never achieved a consistently perfect score. That being said, the technique of adding a level teaspoon of baking soda to six cups of cold water drastically improves (at least when the eggs are fresher) the likelihood of easy-to-peel and easy-on-the-eyes hard-boiled eggs.



Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked

6 cups of cold tap water
2 tablespoons kosher salt (sodium chloride)
Time to come to boil: 11 minutes, 40 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 10
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

Interestingly, the "Salt & Prick" method has proven to be easy to peel from the beginning and nothing has changed this week. For the past three weeks, it has also yielded perfect-appearance eggs as well. This week, while I did give the appearance a 10, there was a notable blemish on one of the eggs; however, after checking the egg shell for signs of cooked egg white and discovering none, I determined that the blemish was caused by the age of the egg, rather than the white being peeled away with the egg shell. While I expected the air gap at the larger end of the egg to grow over time, I hadn't expected other areas of the egg to also show this feature.


So what is the great conclusion to all of this? If you want consistent results without having to worry about how they are cooked or for how long, go out and buy yourself a Cuisinart Egg Cooker. While you may have to tweak the amount of distilled water you add in order to get perfectly peel-able and delectable eggs, in the end, it does take all the guesswork out of the equation. If you don't want to waste $30 and wish to get great results out of the pan you already own, might I suggest the "salt & prick" method? I consulted with my friend and high school science teacher, Amy Waldfogle, who suggested this technique. Upon asking her why this method would work so well, she responded:

"what the salt does is it makes the water you're boiling in hypertonic to the solution in the eggs, which causes some of the water inside the egg membrane to leave - that shrinks the egg a little bit, separating it from the inside of the shell ... same thing that happens when the egg is older - it dehydrates a little"

and

"the inner shell membrane is 'selectively permeable' - that means some things (small molecules, things that are neutral) can pass through but others (big things, things with charges) can't. Salt (sodium chloride) and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) are ionic compounds that dissociate when they dissolve in water - that means they become a bunch of ions floating around - they won't pass through the membrane"

and as a result

"water will move out of the egg into the pot because the natural order of things (entropy) favors equilibrium - everything having the same concentration - so since water is the only thing involved that can travel across the membrane, the egg will dehydrate"

So why prick the egg, too? In addition to allowing the air pressure to equalize inside and outside the egg (which prevents the egg from cracking during cooking), this also allows water to move into the egg during the cooking process and further separate the membrane from the shell. It's the same reason that the egg cooker (via steam) works so well, if slightly less effective.

So, there you have it. If you don't want to go out and buy yourself a dedicated egg cooker, simply prick the larger end of your eggs and add two tablespoons of kosher salt for every six cups of water in your pot. Interestingly, since the membrane in the egg only allows water to move back and forth, the salt in the water does not make the eggs salty, like it would with cooking pasta. Thus, if concerns about sodium intake are an issue, you can put those aside. In terms of the age of the eggs and how that affected the peeling results, generally, as the got older, they did become easier to peel (the control group at least). The second week was definitely a real pain to peel, and based on the original dozen that gave me such a hard time, I don't think that age is a definite indicator of success.

I hope this experiment has been as fun for you as it has been for me. Here's to many successful, easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs!

Kitchen Challenge: Hard-Boiled Eggs, Part III

Welcome back to the third week of the grand hard-boiled egg experiment! In the previous two installments, I endeavored to test three experimental egg cooking methods that would yield easily peel-able and beautifully presentable hard-boiled eggs. My control eggs, also known as the way I've been doing it for decades, consists of placing the cold eggs into the pan, filling it with cold water so that it covers the eggs by about an inch or so, bringing them to a boil, boiling them for one minute, then moving the pan to a cool burner and placing the lid on for eleven minutes.

While none of these methods have changed since the last two posts, I was hoping that by this third installment, the control group would be easier to peel because of the age of the eggs (yet another theory I am testing). The theory is that as the eggs get older, the membrane between the shell and the albumen begins to break down. With this breaking down of the membrane, the resulting hard-boiled egg should be easier to peel. How did this week's eggs fare? Let's find out!

As always, we start with the control group:

Control Group

6 cups of cold tap water
Time to come to boil: 11 minutes, 55 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Control group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 6
* Outer appearance: 6
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

As an entire group, this week's control was easier to peel, two of them still gave me considerable trouble while the third was a total breeze (easily a 10 on its own). Two of the eggs were potmarked with missing albumen, but the third was perfect. While this was an improvement over last week's control eggs, they still didn't beat the first week's numbers.



Commercial Egg Cooker

Time in the egg cooker: ~16 minutes, 30 seconds
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes
Water adjustment: - 1/2 tablespoon

Commercial Egg Cooker ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 10
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 9
* Taste: 10

As it has consistently done so far, the Egg Cooker from Cuisinart has produced easily peel-able eggs with a flawless appearance. Clearly this is emerging as the front-runner for those wishing no-fuss peeling and visually perfect eggs. As for the second 9 in a row for texture, the egg is just about perfect, but not quite as ultra-tender as when I cook it using a non-automatic method. We're talking shades of gray here. For most people, it would rate a 10.



Baking Soda In The Water

6 cups of cold tap water
1 teaspoon Arm & Hammer baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Time to come to boil: 11 minutes, 45 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Baking Soda In The Water group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 9
* Outer appearance: 9
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

The trick to getting these eggs to peel easily was to get underneath the membrane. Then, the shell separated easily from the albumen. This time around, there were just a few very minor blemishes. Almost a 10, but not quite.



Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked

6 cups of cold tap water
2 tablespoons kosher salt (sodium chloride)
Time to come to boil: 11 minutes, 50 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 10
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

Once again for a second week in a row, the "salt and prick" method comes out with perfectly peel-able and presentable eggs.


The astute among you will notice that the time it took to bring the water to boil (as well as the time it took the egg cooker to complete its cooking cycle) was noticeably less than in previous weeks. While it is certainly possible that the humidity levels and atmospheric pressure changed in my apartment, the more likely culprit is that I bought a room fan to help circulate the air and was able to raise the ambient temperature of my living space by several degrees. I will make sure not to change the thermostat before next week's final installment and see if the "bring-to-boil" times match this week's results.

In terms of overall peeling and presentation ratings, the Cuisinart Egg Cooker continues to excel at its uni-tasker ability. That being said, the "salt and prick" method has now scored a second week of dual 10's and is quickly becoming the favorite non-uni-tasker method for getting consistent easily peeled and flawless hard-boiled eggs. After this week's installment, I could begin to make some generalizations, but I will wait until the final post, next Friday, to enter the results of the final installment of this grand "eggsperiment" and look to draw some conclusions. Until then, happy egg peeling!

Kitchen Challenge: Hard-Boiled Eggs, Part II

Welcome back, gentle reader, to week two of the great hard-boiled egg experiment!

If you remember from last week, I had recently experienced such awful luck with peeling hard-boiled eggs I had bought from the local Acme supermarket that I decided to complain about it on Facebook. Helpful friends suggested all manner of techniques for improving my success rate and I decided to take them up on it. I bought four dozen eggs, the same kind as my first dirty dozen, and picked three methods from the variety suggested by my Facebook friends to test out these "theories." I decided to test the same three theories each week (as well as my control group) so that I could see how the methods held up over a four-week testing cycle.

The most common hard-boiled egg theory out there is that older eggs peel easier than fresher eggs. While a single week older than when I bought them might not exactly qualify them as "old" eggs, I was interested to see how my second dozen fared. I brought out the usual suspects in terms of egg cookery and put this second dozen to the test: cooked in tap water, water with baking soda added to it, water with salt added to it and the ends of the eggs pricked, and the Cuisinart commercial egg cooker I had bought at the onset of the challenge.

Let's see how this week's eggs came out!

Control Group

6 cups of cold tap water
Time to come to boil: 12 minutes, 30 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Control group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 3. Two of the eggs peeled like the original ten I based the experiment on ... HORRIBLY!. The third egg peeled much easier, probably closer to an 8 if it was by itself.
* Outer appearance: 4. Two of the eggs looked absolutely horrible. The third egg, the one referenced in the "Ease of peeling" rating, was defect free.
* Texture: 9
* Taste: 10

The way that two of the three eggs peeled and looked after peeling was the reason I started this experiment and I'm kind of glad it happened, actually. While I can control from where I've sourced the eggs and try and match them as closely as possible, clearly, even using the control method (i.e. my original cooking method), changes are VERY obvious between dozens, even with a week of age on the eggs.



Commercial Egg Cooker

Time in the egg cooker: ~18 minutes, 30 seconds
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes
Water adjustment: - 1/2 tablespoon

Commercial Egg Cooker ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 10
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 9. When I first tasted these, I thought they were a 10. Then I tasted the baking soda eggs and realized that they were incredibly tender, so I re-rated these a 9.
* Taste: 10. There was a distinct LACK of sulfur smell this week as I peeled the eggs, clearly a sign that they had not been overcooked. The smaller adjustment I made to the amount of water used (which is how the egg cooker actually times the cooking process) meant they were done just a little bit sooner than last week's batch.



Baking Soda In The Water

6 cups of cold tap water
1 teaspoon Arm & Hammer baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Time to come to boil: 12 minutes, 20 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Baking Soda In The Water group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 8
* Outer appearance: 8
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

While I was disappointed that the baking soda treatment numbers dropped slightly this week (in terms of peeling and appearance), with how much more difficult the control group was to peel this time around (and how badly they looked), the baking soda made a marked improvement on the outcome. While not perfect (like this week's Egg Cooker group), adding just a teaspoon of baking soda to the water made a substantial difference in how much easier the eggs peeled and how much better they looked. Interestingly, even though the amount of time they cooked was the same, these eggs were just a tad less cooked than the other three batches (or all four of last week's batches). This resulted in the whites being incredibly tender.



Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked

6 cups of cold tap water
2 tablespoons kosher salt (sodium chloride)
Time to come to boil: 12 minutes, 35 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 9
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10

Surprisingly, the salted water and pricked eggs did very well this week. They were pretty gosh darn easy to peel and the surface of the peeled eggs was perfect. Interestingly, whereas last week they performed less than the baking soda eggs, this week, they clearly had the best non-commercial results overall and were just a touch better in the texture department.


So where does this leave us, gentle reader? I would expect that as I learn how to use the commercial egg cooker from Cuisinart, I would get better-to-perfect results. That being said, clearly given how horrible the results were for this week's control group, the results for both the baking soda and the salt/egg pricked groups was fairly impressive. Whereas the baking soda method ruled for last week's results, this week, it was the combination of adding salt and pricking the ends of the eggs that came up with the best non-commercial method of getting presentation eggs that also tasted good.

Come back one week from now to check out week number three of the great hard-boiled egg experiment and see if older raw eggs lead to easier peeling (and better looking) cooked eggs.

Kitchen Challenge: Hard-Boiled Eggs, Part I

I LOVE a nicely hard-boiled egg. I love them with just a little kosher salt, I love them as egg salad, I love them pretty much any way I can get them. I've even gone so far as to go through multiple batches, changing up my hard-boiling "technique" so that I can consistently get them cooked just the way I personally like them: yolk just barely set, no green ring, whites tender as all get out.

My problem stems from the fact that peeling these little ovular delicacies can be ... well, gentle reader, there is no better way to say this ... a real pain in the ass. And for all that care and dedication you put into cooking the perfect egg, when you end up with a peeled egg that looks like it might have taken a tour of duty through the worst parts of Afghanistan, it can make you feel quite frustrated. Of course, if the destination for the eggs is in something else (e.g., egg salad, potato salad), it isn't quite as big a deal. But if you are going for presentation eggs, then this is just not acceptable.

About three weeks ago, I bought a dozen eggs from my local Acme store with the intention of using them in baked goods or as fried eggs for my breakfast. Due to life being the crazy whirlwind it can be, they sat. And sat. And sat. Before I realized it, they had been in there for three weeks and I hadn't used a single one. I wasn't worried about them spoiling as the "Sell By" date hadn't come and gone. But I knew that they weren't the freshest of eggs anymore. Many a person has been told that you should use "older" eggs to make hard-boiled eggs because as the eggs age, the membrane inside the shell that makes them hard to peel when fresh slowly degrades.

With great anticipation, I placed the eggs in my pan, filled it with cold water until it covered the eggs by about an inch, turned the burner on high and waited. After about four or five minutes, the water finally came to a boil, I slapped on the lid, and pulled the pot off of the hot burner and started my timer for exactly eleven minutes. After eleven minutes, I pulled the lid off and moved the pot over to my sink where I proceeded to run cold water into the pot and swirled the eggs to cool them off more quickly for about five minutes. What happened next was not pretty.

Occasionally I'll come across an egg whose peel just doesn't want to cooperate. And that usually happened with fresher eggs. But these were at LEAST three week old eggs! Surely the first one, stubbornly refusing to peel nicely wasn't indicative of the whole lot, was it? You'd better believe it was! Every. Single. Egg. Was. Crap.

Frustrated, I posted a message onto my own personal Facebook account. Some thirty-seven responses later, I had all manor of suggestions of "tricks" that I should have done in order to ensure egg peeling success. I was about to call "Shenanigans!" on the whole lot of my friends (who were, after all, just trying to be helpful) when it dawned on me that I ought to take the core of their suggestions and try them out for myself. So that is exactly what I've decided to do. Starting with this post and for the next three Fridays, I will be posting the results of a semi-humorous scientific experiment to see what exactly is the best way to get an egg out of its shell after hard-boiling it.

To that end, on Wednesday, June 1st, I returned to the same Acme store from which I had bought my previous dozen and bought four dozen eggs, all of the same brand, same "Sell By" date, one for each week of the experiment:


Each dozen will yield three test cases and a control. The control will be to prepare the eggs in exactly the same manner in which I am doing now. The three test cases will be to use baking soda in the water when I am cooking the eggs, to prick the end of the egg before cooking it in salted water, and to use a commercial egg cooker and follow the manufacturer's instructions.

For the non-commercial cooking, I will be using the same amount of water in the exact same pan on the exact same burner each time:


For the commercial egg steamer, I have consulted with one of my friends who absolutely swears by hers, Darlene, and picked up a similar model from Bed, Bath & Beyond, the Cuisinart Egg Cooker. Like Alton Brown, I am a firm believer in very few unitaskers in my kitchen. However, she and a number of others convinced me with their platitudes for these little devices that I needed to include one in the testing. Here is the egg cooker that I will be using for this experiment:


Each week, I will rate each batch on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the absolute worst and 10 being the absolute best. The criteria I will use to judge will be:

* Ease of peeling
* Outer appearance of hard-boiled egg
* Taste
* Texture

In judging taste, I am not looking for flavor of the egg so much as any flavor that was imparted by the cooking method (for instance, by the addition of baking soda to the water).

So, Part I will be cooking the eggs 24 hours after purchase; essentially as fresh as they can be. Ready for the results? Here we go!

Control Group

6 cups of cold tap water
Time to come to boil: 12 minutes, 30 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Control group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 7
* Outer appearance: 8
* Texture: 9
* Taste: 10



Commercial Egg Cooker

Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Commercial Egg Cooker ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 9
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 9

I noticed a slight smell of sulfur while peeling the eggs. That being said, this was the first batch I ever cooked in this device and the less than perfect results could entirely be me having not optimized using the device. Next time I will use slightly less water (which is what controls how long the eggs cook). I think an adjustment on my part next week will produce even better results. I did notice a slightly similar taste in the eggs.



Baking Soda In The Water

6 cups of cold tap water
1 teaspoon Arm & Hammer baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Time to come to boil: 12 minutes, 25 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Baking Soda In The Water group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 10
* Outer appearance: 10
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10



Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked

6 cups of cold tap water
2 tablespoons kosher salt (sodium chloride)
Time to come to boil: 12 minutes, 35 seconds
Time boiling: 1 min
Time sitting off heat: 11 minutes
Time cooled under cold water: 3 minutes

Salt In The Water and Egg Pricked group ratings:
* Ease of peeling: 9
* Outer appearance: 6
* Texture: 10
* Taste: 10


So, overall, this week's winner for peeling and appearance, by just a hair over the commercial egg cooker, was the addition of baking soda to the cooking water. For taste and texture, it was essentially perfect across the board. I'll be interested to see if a week's worth of aging in my refrigerator changes the ratings significantly. Come back next Friday for the next installment!