We have backyard chickens and hard-boil a lot of eggs. The biggest effect on peel-ability: Start with boiling water, do not start the eggs in cold water.
For years I started with cold water because that's what Alton Brown said to do in Good Eats. And for years the eggs were a pain to peel. When I read Kenji's article, I switched, and immediately eggs became much easier to peel. Night and day.
No other factor comes close in terms of effect. Not age, not backyard vs store bought. Not the breed (at least, not for any of the dozen chicken breeds we have had). Start with boiling water and 9/10 eggs peel nicely, start with cold water and 9/10 eggs peel terribly.
And it was the Internet that just now added more votes for pre-boil and peel-ability.
Cool Internet, Cool.
Totally agree with you on this though.
My wife claimed there was no difference for a very long time. She had the same experience when we needed to buy store eggs last winter.
Strangely, when going from store eggs to home eggs the difference isn't as pronounced.
I think in order to make the comparison fairer, you should do a blind tasting of the two kinds of eggs at your home, in the same sitting, and under the same conditions as much as possible.
Overkill? Maybe, but also warranted, given that there are experiments out there asserting people cannot really tell the difference.
Store bought eggs are older, have the protective mucus coating removed, are washed with chemicals and come from chickens inundated with medication and fed the cheapest feed possible. If you think that none of those things affect flavor or texture I dont know what to say.
A fair comparison would compare home grown with non-premium eggs that most people are eating and are cost comparable. The test must also not be funded by an egg producer or supporter of big egg, if you grant calling egg factories as such.
There's a bunch of benefits to eating home grown eggs (or free range eggs): the hens are treated better, and you won't get all those nasty chemicals.
Oddly enough, others can and cooks say the whites are much easier to whip.
Research says that the nutritional value is not significantly different between organic and backyard.
However, I expect the fact the backyard eggs are fresh laid is the big differentiator. The supply chain between farm and supermarket is huge, whilst backyard eggs can be laid that day.
Free range just means the chicken can go outside or turn around. It says nothing about the feed or breed.
They definitely have the same hard boiling issue with a strong membrane.
I want it to be placebo as these eggs are expensive and I spend a few hundred a month on them. But I’ve bought every expensive brand of egg I can (Vital Farms, among others, which _used_ to taste amazing then became popular maybe and tasted like any other egg?) and _only_ this brand tastes different than a bog standard cheap egg.
The same thing happened with Kerrygold butter. Regular cheap butter tastes like I’m eating Crisco now.
You eat over 300 eggs a month?
Ugh! I would start to crow if I would eat that much.
Video and transcript expanding on this available at https://nutritionfacts.org/video/who-says-eggs-arent-healthy....
It’s too much to go into here, but you could look at the introduction to Gary Taubes’ 2020 book. It’s in the Kindle sample.
I’m 80, have eaten at least two eggs a day for twenty years, and I’m fine. Not particularly overweight and no heart issues.
In reviewing Gary’s work, I did come across the study he did under Nutrition Science Initiative, and how the results didn’t support his claims. Have you had a chance to look into this?
(Aside: my dad is around your age, and has not yet quit smoking despite science since he doesn’t have any adverse effects. Be well!)
egg consumption may be associated with an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes among the general population and CVD comorbidity among diabetic patients.
>Accumulated epidemiologic evidence generated from this meta-analysis suggests that egg consumption is not associated with an increased risk of overall CVD, IHD, stroke, or mortality. However, compared with those who never consume eggs, those who eat 1 egg per day or more are 42% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Among diabetic patients, frequent egg consumers (ie, ≥ 1 egg/d) are 69% more likely to have CVD comorbidity.
>In the current meta-analysis, we observed a positive association between egg consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes. Although the findings were inconsistent, some animal studies suggested that high cholesterol feeding increased fasting plasma glucose concentrations or induced hyperinsulinemia and impaired glucose tolerance (61–63). Studies have also suggested that elevated serum cholesterol might be associated with an increased islet cholesterol content and directly induce β cell dysfunction by reducing glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (64, 65). In addition, studies have indicated that dietary cholesterol might be associated with chronic, low-grade inflammation (66, 67), which is a mechanism underlying the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Moreover, our results on egg consumption and risk of diabetes are supported by some other human studies (38–40, 68) that do not meet our inclusion criteria... Of note, the possibility cannot be completely excluded that the observed positive associations between egg consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes are explained by residual confounding from unmeasured factors, because diabetes was the secondary outcome in most included studies. Nevertheless, future studies are warranted.
The eggs you get that dont peel well are fresh. Less than 2 weeks old. Home grown eggs are the same way until they age and dry out a bit.
I do keep dual purpose birds in the event that food supplies require a sacrifice to feed my family. It costs a little more to feed heavier hens but the security is worth it.
We started soft boiling, knocking the head off and using a small spoon to eat. It was either that or fried/scrambled.
I never did find out how long a fresh egg would have to age in order to become peelable when hard boiled.
So long as the yolks are waxy, little mess. And it's fast and sweet.
Even fresh eggs peel perfectly.
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-secrets-to-peeling-hard-boil...
I have 17 chickens, 16 of them are hens. I get 9-12 a day and my neighbors love me because we don't eat them. The yolks are big and deep orange/yellow and people seem to love them. I have y purchased an egg in a few years so I have no frame of reference any more. They're free range and they eat everything they can find (snakes, frogs, lizards, bugs, plants) and all the feed and scratch I feed them.
I am curious about this. Is it maybe your boiling technique that is causing this hard membrane? Proteins toughen up if exposed to too much heat.
I get my eggs up to room temperature and drop them into boiling water for 6.5 minutes at sea level. Then I remove the hot water immediately and let them cool. These eggs (no matter where they come from) are always easy to peel and never too tough.