OT; Perfect boiled eggs

[The Medway Handyman]

I do like a nice soft boiled egg with soldiers. Known as a 'dippy' egg around here.

Someone bought me a Lakeland egg boiler as a biffday pressie

video demo explains how it works, but.

Interesting idea. Consists of a water tray with heater at the bottom, a rack to hold up to 7 eggs and a cover with a small (6mm?) hole in the top.

Idea is that a 'specified' amount of water is placed in the water tray, the egg(s) placed in the rack, the lid put on & the heater switched on. When all the water in the tray has boiled away a signal sounds and the egg(s) are ready.

Heater output is fixed, the variable is the amount of water that goes into the tray. So far, so good.

A small measuring beaker is supplied with 3 scales etched into the sides for hard, medium & soft boiled eggs. Each of these scales is subdivided 1-7 for the number of eggs to be boiled.

The 'hard' scale is higher up the side of the beaker than the 'medium' scale, which is higher up than the 'soft' scale.

Makes sense. The more water used, the longer it takes to boil away, the more the egg is cooked. Logical Captain.

What I can't work out is the 1-7 scales. In each case the 1 egg mark is higher up than the 7 egg scale, so it indicates that 1 egg requires more water to cook than 7 eggs would?

I'm confused by this, its counter intuitive. Surely 7 eggs take more heat to cook than 1 egg?

E-mailed Lakeland and they confirm the scales are running the right way.

Can anyone explain the science behind this?

[Pete Verdon]

Do the eggs actually sit *in* the water rather than above it? If so, it seems clear to me that having only one egg in the pan is going to need more water to cover it than if there were six others taking up space in the same-sized pan.

Pete

[The Medway Handyman]

No, the eggs sit a little above the water line, they don't touch or sit in the water at all. Seems like the cooking is achieved by the steam.

[Andy Cap]

You need less volume of steam if the top part is full of eggs ??

[Pete Zahut]

But does it actually _work_? It seems like a lot of faffing around to me. Best thing I've ever used is one of these

Absolutely perfect every time :o)

[The Medway Handyman]

Yerbut, the egs have greater mass?

[Stuart Noble]

Known as a three minute egg round here.

[Stuart Noble]

I see the reviews aren't good, and one indicates that you may be right about the upside down scale

[The Medway Handyman]

Is that egg in cold water, brought to boil & then boiled for three mins? Or egg into already boiling water & boiled for three mins?

I assume the former, unless you like raw egg?

I put them into boiling water for 5 mins for a large egg.

[The Medway Handyman]

The first few reviews are bad, but the majority are good if you click through. Lakeland have confirmed the scales are correct;

"Whilst the the graduations on the egg boiler do appear to be upside down, I can assure you that they are not. I have one of the egg boilers at home and thought exactly the same! I have tried it out and please be assured that they are correct."

[The Medway Handyman]

Only tried it once & yes it did work a treat.

[Graham.]

[Andy Burns]

The more eggs you're cooking, the more volume within the cooker is taken up by eggs, so the less volume of steam you require to fill the remainder?

[TheOldFellow]

Me too. The problem with the 'from cold' method, is that you don't know how cold. The variable that is left is the egg size.

If you get your eggs from a farmer (laid in the last few days) then they are of very variable size. If you get them from Tesco, you don't eat eggs, you eat fossils (usually a few months old) - even sized fossils, but fossils. Until you try fresh farm eggs you will never understand.

R.

[Broadback]

What is wrong with the old fashioned egg timer, just sand in a glass container, fail proof, as long as you don't drop it. However does this device prevent eggs from cracking during cooking, now that is a PITA!

[The Medway Handyman]

It comes with a 'piercer' to make a hole in the pointed end of the egg. We had a similar gadget anyway - piercing the end of the egg shell does prevent it.

[Gordon Henderson]

Although I'm a supporter of free-range eggs and keep my own chickens, and generally hate supermarkets, you're a bit out about the supermarket eggs...

Eggs have a "shelf life" (sell by) of 21 days from lay, and a "best before" time of 28 days from lay. It is illegal to sell eggs that are older than 21 days. So producers have to get their eggs to the supermarkets and shops as soon as practically possible.

Remember that most production hens will lay one egg a day during their laying life, so a farm with a few 1000 hens will not want to stockpile eggs for any length of time at all, or they'll simply run out of space. There will be a very frequent stream of eggs from the production units to the packing units to the shops and to the consumer.

So next time you're in a shop, take the best before date and remove 4 weeks and that's the laying date.

Also note that eggs really don't have to be refridgerated - you can stick them in the fridge, but it doesn't affect their shelt life by much. Just keep them cool and out of direct sunlight.

You also won't find eggs for sale out of a fridge either - at least not in this country. Take an egg out of the fridge into a warm place, and condensation will form on the shell - and as egg shells are porous, any bacteria, etc. on the outside may well get to the nurtient rich interior...

Interstingly enough you can't make a good merangue out of new eggs - they need to to be about 10 days old, and really fresh eggs (less than a week or so) stick to the shells when you try to peel them after hard boiling, so there is some advantage to eggs that are over a week old.

Can't beat home grown eggs for taste though (not to mention yolk density and colour) - that's one place where there is no comparision!

Gordon

[Graham.]

I'm a bit obsessive/compulsive when it comes to boiling eggs, but I must confess I don't make an allowance for egg size, but as they are laid in Tescos, they are pretty much standard.

My technique is boil the kettle, pour into pan, put pan on stove. use remaining water in kettle to make tea. put bread into toaster, carefully lower 2 eggs into boiling water using the big spoon thing with the holes in, look at kitchen clock and calculate where the minute and second hands will be in

3min 15sec time (4min 0sec if egg came from fridge) Pour tea, retrieve toast wait for the appointed time and remove eggs.

[Vernon]

We have one of these a Bosch one (the DIY link) and it is superb, the eggs are cooked just right, obviously you need to fine tune it to your requirements, but once you have the knack, you get perfect results everytime. Prick eggs, add water, turn on, turn off when timer goes. Remove lid and then carry eggs in holder to the table, allow everyone to help themselves. Repeat as required.

For those that already have one.......

I told a friend at work about ours, he bought one and also thought it was fantastic, but couldn't prick the eggs as they didn't fit inside the beaker! I told him to look underneath.....

[dennis]

Good theory, but probably wrong. If no one gets a better answer I will comment on why it should be that way. As a clue I think you should look at how the heat is transferred to the egg and what happens to the steam when that transfer happens.