How to stop egg white foaming in water

[dcSaute]

I so dislike being the village idiot - way too many people point that out to me....right regular.

but, can someone explain why the air sac in an egg keeps getting bigger while the egg is absorbing odors from the refrigerator?

like comma the air sac getting bigger means that there is a constant consistent continued exodus of "vapours" from the egg.

with all that exiting the egg, how does the refrigerator odor get into the egg?
do the bad odors wait for the defrost cycle to 'enter the egg'?

oh, and should anyone think that a paper / EPS egg carton is any kind of air / moisture / odor barrier..... not really. sorry about that.

 

[Addie]

I so dislike being the village idiot - way too many people point that out to me....right regular.

but, can someone explain why the air sac in an egg keeps getting bigger while the egg is absorbing odors from the refrigerator?

like comma the air sac getting bigger means that there is a constant consistent continued exodus of "vapours" from the egg.

with all that exiting the egg, how does the refrigerator odor get into the egg?
do the bad odors wait for the defrost cycle to 'enter the egg'?

oh, and should anyone think that a paper / EPS egg carton is any kind of air / moisture / odor barrier..... not really. sorry about that.

The egg shell is porous. So as you know part of the white of the egg consists partly of water. That water evaporates through the shell that is porous. Odors go through those pores and water evaporates through them in the opposite direction.

Put a warm head of cooked cabbage or cauliflower in the fridge and see what your eggs taste like after sitting on the shelf out of the carton. The carton is better protection than none at all. A lot of folks will purchase a plastic container meant for eggs and transfer their eggs to that. Tupperware sells them. And you can also find them on eBay. Or if your grocery store sells eggs in one of those clear plastic egg cartons, buy a dozen, and hang onto the empty carton to refill it with your regular eggs.

 

[Addie]

And you are not the Village Idiot. Not is this village anyhow. We don't have idiots. Just nice people.

 

[dcSaute]

thanks Addie,

but there's a couple of issues.

the initial egg volume loss is carbon dioxide.
the next volume loss is water vapor.

the CO2 and the H2O are in a constant stream "out of the egg"

the suggestion that odors - much bigger molecules than CO2 and H2O some how move in the opposite direction just does not work with real science.

I was the Technical Services Director for a (then) large corporation selling packaging products to what shall be an un-named very large company - started with P and G - who had the rather nasty habit of checking all their supplier claims. I guess I may have an unfair advantage to understanding how various 'vapours' move around the world and through various materials.

that a paper/EPS/thermoformed plastic egg carton per the typical design is a "barrier" to any kind of moisture / gas loss / gain inside a refrigerator is, sorry - but put bluntly/truthfully - quite contradictory to the real world.

>>Put a warm head of cooked cabbage or cauliflower in the fridge
neither is out-gassing.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

And you are not the Village Idiot. Not is this village anyhow. We don't have idiots. Just nice people.

+1
I'm the village idiot. Just ask my boss. In reality, I do have an answer for you.

As Addie said, egg whites contain a fair amount of water. Steam will not go through the egg shell, but water vapor will (think GoreTex). As the vapor exits the egg, probably due to osmotic pressure, a vacuum is formed that draws in air and any odor molecules small enough to pass through the pores. This is why the bubble forms, and enlarges over time, and the eggs absorb other flavors.

As for the paper carton, it helps, but as you said, won't seal the eggs completely against odors. But then, neither will plastic. We used plastic shells to contain lead-acid batteries that we sold to customers. We used plastic because the outgassed hydrogen from the batteries, if contained by a metal enclosure, created an explosion hazard. The hydrogen molecules though, were small enough to pass through the plastic shell, nearly unimpeded, eliminating hydrogen buildup.

So yes, paper cartons help. Plastic helps more. But the best way to keep your eggs from gaining unwanted flavors is to use them up within a week or so after purchase.

Hope that helps.

Now, I think I'll go home, make mistakes while creating Easter goodies, and be the village idiot. And remember, when people think you're the village idiot, they expect less of you, and you can get more of what you want to do done.

Seeeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[FrankZ]

In our fridge we have an egg tray, not covered, just a tray. Our eggs are fine.

Not that I make it a habit of having foul smelling things in the fridge. But there are times that something does have a strong smell, like cabbage, and we never have any issues with the taste of the egg.

 

[dcSaute]

>> As the vapor exits the egg, probably due to osmotic pressure, a vacuum is formed that draws in air and any odor molecules small enough to pass through the pores. This is why the bubble forms

aaaahhhhh, hold on a sec.

the VI wants to know, why is a really fresh egg white cloudy? why does a really fresh egg white become "clear" with age?

the egg has a yolk, the egg has a white, there is a membrane between the white bit and the shell.

so the theory is "something" inside the yolk/white "exits" - to "exit" that "something" has to pass through the membrane.

the air sac forms between the membrane and the shell. if proof is required, go peel an egg.

the "something" - having exited the yolk/white and passed through the membrane, must now "exit" the actual shell faster than something else on the 'outside pushing in' to create the 'vacuum' into which odors are drawn.

do I got this right?

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I believe you've got it. I would suspect that the membrane that is against the shell is a semi-permeable membrane, like that membrane that separates the intestinal tract from the blood vessels that absorb nutrients from the gut.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I thought I was the Village Idiot...maybe maybe demoted to Court jester...

 

[taxlady]

I honestly don't know if eggs can absorb fridge odours. I read it on a egg site. I leave my eggs in the carton, whether it's cardboard or plastic. I use the egg tray in the fridge for hard boiled eggs.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I thought I was the Village Idiot...maybe maybe demoted to Court jester...

They don't allow ogres and ogress's into villages, idiot or not. Europeans were funny that way. But villager, or just a humble ogress on the outskirts of the village, you are no idiot. Indeed, you are a princess, though in Europe, with all the marying withing the same bloodlines, that was no garuntee of quality either.

Fortunatly, we know you, and I suspect their are no inter-family marriages among ogers. You are no idiot, any way you look at it. Though you may be right about being a jester. What am I saying! I know that you are a jester.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[dcSaute]

>>if eggs can absorb fridge odours.
likely falls into the "ye olde kitchen" tales.

quite some years ago when I started researching the "truths" to such things, I found a web site that 'documented' how much water was 'lost' while eggs were stored in the home fridge. regrets, didn't "save" that site - but it was a .edu type non-egg industry thing.

misc background you may not wish to know about:
the initial "air sac" in a egg is created when the egg "cools down" from the hen's body temperature. it is created at the "big end" because - do not shoot the messenger - the shell is weaker / more porous at the big end.

the shell and membranes (there's more than one, technically....) are "permeable" - this is really quite an absolute requirement for a fertilized egg to grow a chick. it's a animal, it needs oxygen and it needs to get rid of carbon dioxide. as a chick develops inside the egg the "air sac" gets bigger and bigger, because . . . drum roll & rim shot . . . the developing chick uses up the volume of yolk & white inside the egg creating a 'vacuum'

this is only important if you are hatching chickens inside your refrigerator - which, temperature wise, is not going to happen comma anyway.

so, back to the question at hand.... the rate of moisture loss from an egg stored under refrigeration is quite small. sorry, don't remember the data - because - to result in any significant moisture loss required months of home fridge storage and to be perfectly blunt I do not keep eggs for months in my fridge - so it was of 'not really any interest' and I didn't "store" the info in my head.

I also store eggs in their (in my case pulped paper) carton. the dozen carton fits / slides quite nicely into the "wine bottle rack" of my fridge.....
all the pulped / EPS / clear plastic "dozen containers" I've seen on the market have these gigantic holes - they are not designed to 'contain / exclude' anything.

so the only way an egg is going to "suck up" bad odors (odor molecules are 50-10,000 times the size of oxygen/nitrogen/carbon dioxide/etc) is for the egg to lose so much moisture those huge odors are driven to 'penetrate' the membrane(s).

 

[Mad Cook]

Thanks to all of the above who have replied. I have a few follow-on comments, and a question.

First, I have tried reducing the boil rate of the water once the foam starts to appear but to no avail. Once the albumen is in the water, that’s it. No amount of fiddling with the gas flow works. The only thing to do is curse and throw the eggs and water away and start again.

Second, I am partial to poached duck eggs. They are larger than chicken eggs, as pointed out by Chief Longwind and MenuMaker, and they are often the cause of the problem because the poacher pots are not designed for anything over a standard size egg. Now I eat my duck eggs boiled, not poached!

Third, I am a Brit living in the UK. (I need to work out how to add UK after Fareham in my profile.) My wife and I used to own a 16th century farmhouse and we populated the house with ancient things including a couple of Victorian egg coddlers. Egg coddlers are not ramekins. An egg coddler is a small china pot with a metal screw top lid. The egg is broken into the pot; the lid is screwed down, tight; and the whole kit and caboodle is fully immersed in rolling boiling water for around 7 or 8 minutes. The coddled egg, when ready, is superb.

When we moved from the farm, we either gave or threw away the coddlers. I regret that now. A coddler would have taken a full size duck egg. I’ve not worked out how to insert an image in these replies but if you google Royal Worcester Egg Coddlers and switch to Images you will see what I’m talking about. We owned the Victorian equivalent of the coddlers with cherries on, called Evesham.

Fourth, thanks for all the alternative methods of poaching/coddling/oeufs-en-cocotting the eggs. I will try some of the techniques.

Last, I appreciate the answers you have all given me but nobody has yet answered my question – what can I put in the water to stop the foaming once the albumen has entered it?

Ben

I'm a Brit in the UK too and I was always taught that duck eggs should only be eaten hard-boiled or baked in cakes. Something to do with the ducks swimming and feeding in polluted water.

I own two of the Royal Worcester china coddlers which were Christmas presents some years ago. Never used them but they are there if want them.

I suppose you could try vinegar in the water.. It's used to try and coagulate the egg white when you poach eggs directly in a pan of water. I don't find it works but other people swear by it. It might solve your problem.

 

[Mad Cook]

I honestly don't know if eggs can absorb fridge odours. I read it on a egg site. I leave my eggs in the carton, whether it's cardboard or plastic. I use the egg tray in the fridge for hard boiled eggs.

Generations of French cooks have put a truffle in a paper bag with raw eggs in shell in order to flavour the eggs. I've never been given a truffle so can't validate this but Elizabeth David cites it in one of her books and says it works.

I have to say that I rarely store raw eggs in the 'fridge. I don't think it does them any good. Perhaps if you are in an area with vey high summer temps you might need to but that doesn't often apply over here.

 

[Mad Cook]

I'm a Brit in the UK too and I was always taught that duck eggs should only be eaten hard-boiled or baked in cakes. Something to do with the ducks swimming and feeding in polluted water.

safefood | Storing food safely | Fridges