How to take your shirt off.

[Pax]

That "how to take off your shirt" video? That's exactly how I take mine off, I hate wearing clothes so I've gotten very efficient at removing them as soon as I can.

[GLC1968]

Being the pessimist that I am, the first thing I thought was 'try that wearing a dress shirt'.

Then I watched the egg video and immediately thought "wow, that dude doesn't have fresh eggs". That technique would NEVER work on an egg that is less than a month old...breath bacteria or not.

[OakLeaf]

You know, I've heard that "too fresh to peel" thing for a long time, but we don't always eat that many eggs, so the eggs we get from the farmer sometimes stay in our fridge for six weeks or longer. (Yes, they take MUCH longer than that to spoil, and the eggs in the grocery store are probably older than that...)

And in the summertime when the hens are laying heavy, you still can't peel them. It ain't freshness.

My guess is it's nutrition. Battery hens get a precisely controlled ration of calcium that makes for rigid, non-shattering shells. Pastured hens get crickets and grass seeds and whatever they choose to pick out of their supplemental feed pail, and sometimes it's plenty of calcium, and sometimes when they're laying an egg every day it makes for thin shells.

Now that the season has turned and the hens aren't laying quite as much, eggs I'm getting from the same farmer are getting easier to peel - even if I boil them the same day she sorted them.




Whew, that was a drift from taking your shirt off.

[GLC1968]

You know, I've heard that "too fresh to peel" thing for a long time, but we don't always eat that many eggs, so the eggs we get from the farmer sometimes stay in our fridge for six weeks or longer. (Yes, they take MUCH longer than that to spoil, and the eggs in the grocery store are probably older than that...)

And in the summertime when the hens are laying heavy, you still can't peel them. It ain't freshness.

My guess is it's nutrition. Battery hens get a precisely controlled ration of calcium that makes for rigid, non-shattering shells. Pastured hens get crickets and grass seeds and whatever they choose to pick out of their supplemental feed pail, and sometimes it's plenty of calcium, and sometimes when they're laying an egg every day it makes for thin shells.

Now that the season has turned and the hens aren't laying quite as much, eggs I'm getting from the same farmer are getting easier to peel - even if I boil them the same day she sorted them.




Whew, that was a drift from taking your shirt off.

Still drifting....

I think the theory is (and what we've found) is that the eggs need to be older because over time, the white will thicken as some of the moisture evaporates through the shell. This allows some air inside and lets the shell slightly pull away from the white when cooked. We have noticed that even 4 and 5 week old eggs are STILL super hard to peel if they were never washed. The bloom keeps the shells sealed enough that they are still considered 'fresh'. If we wash a freshly laid egg and then wait 3 or 4 weeks, it'll peel.

There is also a definite difference between breeds of chickens. Our white leghorn eggs always have thinner shells that are easier to peel than the other breeds. And since white leghorn is the breed typically used for commercial operations (they lay like clockwork, too!), it makes sense.