Peeling Farm Fresh Eggs
Having a hard time peeling your farm fresh eggs? You’re not alone. The issue is that they are FRESH. Store bought eggs are mostly…. old. As eggs age, the membrane starts to loosen from the shell. As an egg ages it gets lighter by evaporation of water through the porous shell, causing the growth of the air space. Hence the old water test for freshness, a fresh egg sinks and an old egg floats. So you have three options to hard boil your egg: 1. Buy old eggs from the store. 2. Buy fresh eggs and leave them in your refrigerator for three weeks, or 3. Take steps to make your egg separate easily from the shell.
There are countless ways described on the internet to peel a farm-fresh egg. I’ve tried most of them. Everything from poking tiny holes with a tack at the bottom of the egg, but not too deep as to puncture the membrane (very, very, hard to do), to adding baking soda to the water (that one didn’t work at all), to cracking the shell all over right after boiling (this just made the shell stick in smaller pieces). Some people swear by these methods – but they didn’t work for me.
A simple way that works is to boil the eggs for 13 – 15 minutes, drain the water and place ice over them for 10 minutes (or until all the ice melts). Peel immediately in cool running water to rinse the egg shells away as you peel. Start by cracking the egg at the big end as the air usually pockets there.
The second most frequently asked question I get about boiled eggs is the yolk color. Yolk color in eggs will vary greatly based on what the chicken has been eating. Right after we give the hens beets, for instance, we see dark orange to sometimes red in the eggs. Since this tends to freak people out, we limit the chicken’s beet consumption. Sometimes, however, the yolk will be perfectly normal if you crack them, but will have a greenish-grey film after it has been boiled. This is caused by a chemical reaction in the egg. This film forms when the temperature of the yolk exceeds 158° F. This discoloration is not harmful. Sulfur from amino acids in the egg white is reacting with iron from the yolk in the heat causing a film to form on the yolk's surface.
Don’t give up on your farm fresh eggs. You really can have delicious eggs, served boiled.
Enjoy!