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Comment by Blahah | Hacker News Reader

This is a lovely article, but I can't help feel the author is missing a trick. If you need to peel an egg, do it under fast running cold water. No matter the condition of the egg, the running water will rapidly separate the shell and membrane from what's underneath, and it usually comes away in a single sheet. No need for 4-8 hours of chemistry.

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I have to agree, and I say this as someone who used to pluck eggs from under the chicken, and boil them later that day. Running water is magical stuff.

It might be that you don't have the problem with peeling very fresh eggs the author is addressing. We keep our own hens, and an egg just a few days old is bloomin hard to shift the shell off.

We get fresh eggs twice a week from our neighbour who keeps hens. Unless he is secretly giving us old eggs (not impossible, he's pretty grumpy) I think we generally should have very freshly laid ones. Have you tried the running water trick?

Having spent the better part of a week researching this one, I found two things that "cracked the case": 1) steam cook instead of boil (12 minutes in a pot with 1/4" water) - and then 2) let them cool down for 12+ hours. You can at that point crack the shell in half and the hard-cooked egg will fall out...

If waiting isn't an option, then under water -- either running water or in a bowl -- works just as well. The outer membrane that sticks to the shell just needs moisture to release.

The article does mention "No more reliable is [...] shocking in ice water."

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