I measure from the moment the water starts to boil. 4:30 minutes is a good starting point if you want the yellow to be soft but as mentioned, amount of water, pot, your stove, egg size, it all affects the boiling time quite severely. I wouldn’t add or remove more than 15 seconds either if you want to find that sweet spot because it is definitely not like in the picture. 7-8 minutes is pretty much hard boiled for me, but maybe those are some really fat eggs.
The whole cracking egg thing is way overblown. For the longest time we poked holes into the side with the air bubble, turns out that didn’t actually do anything either (so we stopped that). It could be that faster or slower heating or the shell makes cracking more or less likely, but unless someone actually (scientifically) tests this, who knows?
I stopped doing the “pokey thing” and have had roughly the same number of breaks at before, maybe even less (one less point to fracture from without the hole). Subjective interpretation of the effectiveness is useless, as we humans are subject to so many possible bias that’s it’s impossible to be objective, no matter how hard we try. You can’t even eat enough eggs to have a statistically relevant sample size, let alone one large enough to determine if it does or doesn’t “help a little”.
You “feel” it helps. That’s ok. Also ok to act on. It’s just about boiling your own eggs.
I‘ve never had a single poked egg break. If I don’t they regularly do. That’s not statistically relevant, sure, but in my personal statistic it seems to work.
The hole does work too though? It helps release inside pressure from the heating process. I pretty much never have an egg crack from doing the poke and putting them into the cold water immediately. Meanwhile, not doing either one of those things and they almost always pop.
Just because there’s a logical explanation for why it could work doesn’t mean that’s actually what happens, or that pressure is even the dominant effect causing cracks.
Cracks could also come from bouncing around in the water, which could be solved by holding them up in some way. Or it could be weak points/areas from not badly formed shells from hens living in too tight quarters or being malnurished, where buying eggs from more humane sources would solve it. Or a combination, where the pressure differences in the water from rising steam bubbles cause uneven water-pressure on the egg, but they only crack when they are sufficiently weak to begin with, so just putting less water in might be enough to not make em crack (cause then there’s also less water pressure). I could be the packaging, that some eggs develop cracks during transport and they then make them vulnerable, so more local or differently packaged eggs wouldn’t crack at all. As you can see, it’s not that hard to come up with logical explanations and just doing a few things differently might just solve the problem, and even then the reason it was resolved might still be something completely different than we thought.
For comparison: I haven’t poked a hole into an egg in a long time, and I think I had like one or two crack this year. My eggs come from the farmer one street over, and the hens are freeroaming with plenty of space. They don’t get transported at all. Sometimes, I use a steam thingy to boil them, sometimes in water. Even when I did poke holes in, some eggs used to crack anyway, and I’d guess 1 in 3 months in a pretty good guess as to what the frequency was, that’s why I said “roughly the same numer” in another comment.
In my own experience boiling hundreds of eggs over the last couple of years I found that if I don’t start with boiling water then the shells are very difficult to get off. If I start with boiling water the shells slide right off.
From what I can tell it depends on the eggs themselves, maybe their freshness, but it is almost always a certain batch of them that have this issue. Doesn’t really matter how you boil them, or if you put them under cold water afterwards. They’d be hard or easy to peal regardless.
But timing it is surely much easier when the water is boiling. If you just slam it in cold water then you are at the mercy of whatever stove you are using
Also, is this starting from refrigerated eggs (USA-style) or room temperature (everyone’s else)? I assume this makes less of a difference with your second method.
Yes, eggs are washed which removes the protective layer that makes them safe without refrigeration. So our eggs look cleaner, but have to be refrigerated.
Edit. Looking into this a little more and it seems to be different ways to combat stuff like salmonella. I guess most of the world vaccinates the chickens, plus the cuticle on the egg prevents bacteria from entering through the shell. In the US we wash the eggs and refrigerate to prevent it.
This is correct, and whenever the topic comes up, there’s always a bunch of misinformation. Like you said, it’s two means to the same end. Early in the washing strategy, like a hundred years ago, some washed eggs from Australia were imported to England, and a bunch of people got sick from them, so Europe decide to go the other route. The US got the washing thing down and decided to keep with it. Today, both approaches work pretty well. Australia, Japan, and some Scandinavian countries also use washing. Worth noting that washing requires an infrastructure of shipping things around refrigerated.
True. Also you can modulate the cooking a bit when you stop it, I empty the hot water and barely cover the eggs with fresh water, letting them cool slowly. For example.
Good call. And elevation if high up. Possibly type of egg too. Even assuming all chicken eggs, some have different ratios of yolk to white. We might be in the weeds at this point though.
This looks like “dropping an egg into boiling water” and not “bringing the water to a boil with the egg in it,” which is an important distinction.
I’ve never seen an egg where ten minutes of boiling doesn’t fully solidify the yolk.
Actually, it doesn’t even take that long. I mean, I guess ten minutes would do it, too.
I’m not sure that’s a uhhh credible source. But it cracked me up.
Isn’t that how you’re supposed to do this?
It is. Bring the water to a boil, drop the egg(s).
No. If you throw the eggs in early and have them warm up with the water they’re less likely to crack.
But how do you work out how long they should be boiling, especially if you’re after somewhere in the soft boil sweet spot?
I measure from the moment the water starts to boil. 4:30 minutes is a good starting point if you want the yellow to be soft but as mentioned, amount of water, pot, your stove, egg size, it all affects the boiling time quite severely. I wouldn’t add or remove more than 15 seconds either if you want to find that sweet spot because it is definitely not like in the picture. 7-8 minutes is pretty much hard boiled for me, but maybe those are some really fat eggs.
Yeah, but then you have to watch your pot for the moment it starts to boil. It’s easier to just boil the water, drop them in and then set a timer.
The whole cracking egg thing is way overblown. For the longest time we poked holes into the side with the air bubble, turns out that didn’t actually do anything either (so we stopped that). It could be that faster or slower heating or the shell makes cracking more or less likely, but unless someone actually (scientifically) tests this, who knows?
The pokey thing definitely works. Maybe not 100% of the time but it does work. Keeping them at room temperature also helps a little.
I stopped doing the “pokey thing” and have had roughly the same number of breaks at before, maybe even less (one less point to fracture from without the hole). Subjective interpretation of the effectiveness is useless, as we humans are subject to so many possible bias that’s it’s impossible to be objective, no matter how hard we try. You can’t even eat enough eggs to have a statistically relevant sample size, let alone one large enough to determine if it does or doesn’t “help a little”.
You “feel” it helps. That’s ok. Also ok to act on. It’s just about boiling your own eggs.
I‘ve never had a single poked egg break. If I don’t they regularly do. That’s not statistically relevant, sure, but in my personal statistic it seems to work.
The hole does work too though? It helps release inside pressure from the heating process. I pretty much never have an egg crack from doing the poke and putting them into the cold water immediately. Meanwhile, not doing either one of those things and they almost always pop.
Just because there’s a logical explanation for why it could work doesn’t mean that’s actually what happens, or that pressure is even the dominant effect causing cracks.
Cracks could also come from bouncing around in the water, which could be solved by holding them up in some way. Or it could be weak points/areas from not badly formed shells from hens living in too tight quarters or being malnurished, where buying eggs from more humane sources would solve it. Or a combination, where the pressure differences in the water from rising steam bubbles cause uneven water-pressure on the egg, but they only crack when they are sufficiently weak to begin with, so just putting less water in might be enough to not make em crack (cause then there’s also less water pressure). I could be the packaging, that some eggs develop cracks during transport and they then make them vulnerable, so more local or differently packaged eggs wouldn’t crack at all. As you can see, it’s not that hard to come up with logical explanations and just doing a few things differently might just solve the problem, and even then the reason it was resolved might still be something completely different than we thought.
For comparison: I haven’t poked a hole into an egg in a long time, and I think I had like one or two crack this year. My eggs come from the farmer one street over, and the hens are freeroaming with plenty of space. They don’t get transported at all. Sometimes, I use a steam thingy to boil them, sometimes in water. Even when I did poke holes in, some eggs used to crack anyway, and I’d guess 1 in 3 months in a pretty good guess as to what the frequency was, that’s why I said “roughly the same numer” in another comment.
Never ever had this problem. 🤷♂️
When you put the eggs in are they fridge-cold?
Yes, why? Does that help or shmelp?
When the eggs go from fridge cold to boiling hot I would assume that would increase the chances of them cracking once they got the water.
If you bring the water to boil before adding the egg it is much easier to remove the shell
Edit: I see my comment doesn’t really relate to your comment. I’m tired
Chef here. Use older eggs for boiling as they are far easier to shell than fresh eggs.
That’s a myth and unrelated. But throwing it into the cold water helps preventing the egg from cracking.
I just poke a tiny hole in the bottom. And keeping them at room temperature also helps a little, if I’m too lazy to poke.
In my own experience boiling hundreds of eggs over the last couple of years I found that if I don’t start with boiling water then the shells are very difficult to get off. If I start with boiling water the shells slide right off.
From what I can tell it depends on the eggs themselves, maybe their freshness, but it is almost always a certain batch of them that have this issue. Doesn’t really matter how you boil them, or if you put them under cold water afterwards. They’d be hard or easy to peal regardless.
Are you in the US? We wash our eggs to remove the coating and then we need to refrigerate them. Could make a difference in how they peel.
But timing it is surely much easier when the water is boiling. If you just slam it in cold water then you are at the mercy of whatever stove you are using
You start timing once the water starts boiling.
But its not like the not boiling but at 90 degrees Celsius water doesn’t affect the egg
Also, is this starting from refrigerated eggs (USA-style) or room temperature (everyone’s else)? I assume this makes less of a difference with your second method.
They don’t seriously have refrigerated eggs, do they
Canadian here. I buy them from a fridge so I keep them in my fridge.
Yes, eggs are washed which removes the protective layer that makes them safe without refrigeration. So our eggs look cleaner, but have to be refrigerated.
Edit. Looking into this a little more and it seems to be different ways to combat stuff like salmonella. I guess most of the world vaccinates the chickens, plus the cuticle on the egg prevents bacteria from entering through the shell. In the US we wash the eggs and refrigerate to prevent it.
This is correct, and whenever the topic comes up, there’s always a bunch of misinformation. Like you said, it’s two means to the same end. Early in the washing strategy, like a hundred years ago, some washed eggs from Australia were imported to England, and a bunch of people got sick from them, so Europe decide to go the other route. The US got the washing thing down and decided to keep with it. Today, both approaches work pretty well. Australia, Japan, and some Scandinavian countries also use washing. Worth noting that washing requires an infrastructure of shipping things around refrigerated.
See what I mean? There are a lot of variables not listed here.
True. Also you can modulate the cooking a bit when you stop it, I empty the hot water and barely cover the eggs with fresh water, letting them cool slowly. For example.
That said, it’s good indications.
True and it doesn’t seem to care about start egg temp and number of eggs vs amount of water. Without that info it’s not that useful.
Does egg size not matter or what?
Good call. And elevation if high up. Possibly type of egg too. Even assuming all chicken eggs, some have different ratios of yolk to white. We might be in the weeds at this point though.