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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow to tell if your eggs are fresh
From the Homesteading/Survivalism Facebook Page:
How to Tell if an Egg is Bad
Place the egg into a bowl of cold water. The water level should be about 2 times higher than the egg.
Fresh eggs will sink to the bottom of the bowl and probably lie on their sides. Slightly older eggs (about one week) will lie on the bottom but bob slightly.
If the egg balances on its smallest tip, with the large tip reaching for the top, it's probably close to three weeks old. Eggs that float at the surface are bad and should not be consumed.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)I've got two eggs I need to test.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)DainBramaged
(39,191 posts)avebury
(10,952 posts)Not everyone checks on the cooking thread but most people cook eggs.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)Cooking and baking would probably appreciate this. I like egg salad and this sounds like a good tip to make sure I don't boil a bad one
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)TalkingDog
(9,001 posts)fyi
BlueToTheBone
(3,747 posts)Childhood taunt.
brewens
(13,557 posts)realize I was testing their freshness. Even after I've had them a week or more, I've never had one do anything but lie on it's side. That must mean mine are always pretty fresh when I buy them.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)Eggs stay good for a very long time if kept refrigerated.
One old trick is to turn them over every day or so.
For some reason, forcing the yolk to move through the white helps preserve the egg. I don't really understand this but I trust the people who have told me this works.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)We used to keep chickens and sell eggs. Its a royal pain in the ass. People still do it though and we buy our eggs fresh from a guy down the road when the hens are laying. Sooner or later he'll quit too, and then we'll find someone else to buy them from. Somebody's always raising chickens.
Anyway, if you want fresh eggs that's the only way to get them. The ones sold in grocery stores are kept in cold storage for ages. It doesn't make much difference though, other than in the ability to peel them if they are boiled - old eggs peel much easier.
And that's about all I know about eggs, other than if you plan to go into the chicken business you could do a lot worse than Rhode Island Reds or Barred-Rocks; pretty hardy birds that lay well and also produce good meat if you are so inclined.
TalkingDog
(9,001 posts)producers will hold back eggs for the upcoming holiday.
DollarBillHines
(1,922 posts)Maybe if one shops at Safeway (where I buy cat food and litter), but all of our other markets (all two of them) carry only local eggs.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)so is this 1 to 3 beyond that?
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)Igel
(35,293 posts)The "lying/standing in water" business only works because of air inside the shell. If there's not much air, the egg lies flat. There's a lot of air, then it stands up on the end where the air pocket is. (And if the air pocket is half-way, then the egg will rotate so that end's highest.)
But if there's air in the egg after a few weeks when there wasn't hardly any when the egg was laid, then you have to ask what made way for the air.
Answer: Water.
Next question: What makes water evaporate faster or slower?
Answer: Temperature and relative humidity.
So if you get the egg out from under the hen or from among your mint and it's been there for a few days, it's likely to have lost some water. A week or three in your ice box or fridge and it's going to lose more water. This test works.
If you want to keep your eggs for months, then you need to keep them very cold (but not freezing) and you need to keep them in a really humid space. Then almost no water evaporates. Until you get it home.
Then this test fails.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)upi402
(16,854 posts)We always cook them well. My wife says the old ones peel easier when hard boiled too. She grew up on duck eggs.
Neoma
(10,039 posts)The sinking ones better for omelets and all that.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)Works the same!
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)oneshooter
(8,614 posts)PotatoChip
(3,186 posts)Cool tip. Thanks!
Kingofalldems
(38,440 posts)OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)Just ask any fundy.
nolabear
(41,956 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)gkhouston
(21,642 posts)Oh, right. 'Cause there's no way you could lose yourself in the "crowd".