All about "sous vide" eggs

[seabream]

nickrey - Do you recommend your egg topper? What brand is it?

I am still unable to peel sous vide eggs (it's getting ridiculous that I can make the perfect sous vide egg but can't peel it...) I tried adding baking soda to the water in the ratio recommended by Harold McGee, I tried using an egg on its expiration date, I tried both an old egg with baking soda in the water, and I tried the vinegar solution trick. The peel came out better in these experiments than fresh eggs in plain water, but I still can't get my eggs to peel without cracking in a few places. I'm now thinking that I need to improve on my peeling technique.

I usually crack the egg on both eggs with a spoon, and then use my hands to remove the shell in the ends. I then crack the egg all around, either on the counter or with the spoon, and proceed to remove the bits of shell. As I remove some of the shell, pieces of egg white stick to it and lead to cracks in the egg.

Would an egg topper help remove shell without the cracking the white? Any other peeling techniques that I should try?

[nickrey]

I can't guarantee this for quail's eggs but it works very well for hen's eggs. It looks like this:

Place the egg pointy end down on a hard surface. Place the bottom part over the top of the egg. Raise plunger and let it drop. This gives a line around the top of the egg that makes easy to peel the top off. As I said in the earlier post, it normally leaves a small hole in the pointy end of the egg as well. Push gently in this hole and the egg will come easily out of the top hole.

I bought it on line in Australia but am sure you can find it on Amazon easily enough.

[EnriqueB]

OK, here is a new version with egg size used.

Great, thanks!!

[EnriqueB]

Any other peeling techniques that I should try?

In Modernist Cuisine they propose to torch the egg surface for about 2 minutes, turning the egg often with tongs so it does not burn in any point. I have tried a couple of times and never really got it to work, also found it not very convenient and too slow for many eggs at once. Has someone successfully tried this technique?

I use an egg topper like the one in nickrey's picture.

[FeChef]

Again, whats the maximum depth the polyscience can drop into a container?

On my Chef's Series, its about 7.5" from the bracket to the bottom of the housing, the bottom of the heating element recessed maybe 1/8" up from the bottom of the housing.

Omar

Thank you.

[seabream]

nickrey and EnriqueB - Thanks for the egg topper info. I am thinking of getting this one: http://www.amazon.com/Rosle-12827-Egg-Topper/dp/B0045YMQ36/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360611024&sr=8-1&keywords=egg+topper

In Modernist Cuisine they propose to torch the egg surface for about 2 minutes, turning the egg often with tongs so it does not burn in any point. I have tried a couple of times and never really got it to work, also found it not very convenient and too slow for many eggs at once. Has someone successfully tried this technique?

Interesting... but what is the rationale behind torching the egg? Aren't warm eggs harder to peel than cold eggs?

[demo5]

I have an idea that requires using a quail's egg where the white is firm like a hard boiled egg but the yolk is basically completely raw/liquid. Does anyone have an idea of what times, temps and techniques are needed to achieve this?

Thanks.

[FeChef]

I have an idea that requires using a quail's egg where the white is firm like a hard boiled egg but the yolk is basically completely raw/liquid. Does anyone have an idea of what times, temps and techniques are needed to achieve this?

Thanks.

If you want the yoke raw but the white hard boiled i would just get a pot of water to a rolling boil and add the eggs straight from the fridge and cook for 7-10 minutes. Then immediatley chill in ice water to stop the cooking process. You may want to test one egg at a time between 7-10 minutes to find the sweet spot.

[nickrey]

7-10 minutes for quails eggs is going to give you very chewy yellows.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add quail eggs, boil for exactly 1 minute and 40 seconds. Take from water, place immediately into ice water to stop cooking.

I did 36 eggs for a scotch egg appetiser this way and they were perfectly cooked on the white and runny in the middle.

[FeChef]

7-10 minutes for quails eggs is going to give you very chewy yellows.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add quail eggs, boil for exactly 1 minute and 40 seconds. Take from water, place immediately into ice water to stop cooking.

I did 36 eggs for a scotch egg appetiser this way and they were perfectly cooked on the white and runny in the middle.

Yeah sorry. I was referring to large eggs. in my tests, 5 minutes wasnt enough to hard boil the whites. Ive had Quail before, but never had or even seen a quail egg so no idea how big they are.

[demo5]

Thank you for the help. 1:40 was perfect.

[bhsimon]

...Thinking about a restaurant situation or any time consistency and volume are called for, I wondered whether either of these two approaches may work to have an egg whose white was firm with yolk at desired consistency:

1. Eggs into a 55°C bath to equalise. Hold there until required. This brings the egg to a known internal temperature closer to the final temp without setting either yolk or white. If held long enough, they will be pasteurised. Then, in a separate bath at, say, 90–95°C, drop egg for required time (depends on size) for the yolk to reach desired consistency. The time would range between 5 and 7 minutes, depending on final yolk temp and egg size (which would need to be established before calculations could be done; I use SousVide Dash).

2. Egg is first in a 62–64°C bath (depending on desired yolk consistency) and held until equilibrium is reached, then moved to 55°C bath to be held until needed. This should halt the cooking of the yolk and stabilise the internal temp. When required, the egg goes into 90°C bath for just long enough to set the white. The idea is to use the 62–64°C water bath to set the yolks, which are then cooled a little and held before being moved to the hotter bath to set the whites.

Is there any practical limit to how long an egg can be held at 55°C? Say, for example, you were cooking breakfast eggs for a bunch of guests, could you put them into the bath the night before to be held for 8–12 hours?

We need some fabulous eGulleter with 2 or 3 water baths to try out these approaches. The timing is critical because the internal temp of the egg will be rising rapidly at the moment of completion because of the temperature difference between core and water bath. The best way would be to directly transfer them back to the 55°C water bath so they don't cool down completely but the temp will be below both yolk and white setting temps.

(Oh my, 3 water baths for eggs. Sometimes I wonder...)

[Robert Jueneman]

I would strongly recommend approach #2, but wich a slight modification. I would set the yolk at the desired consistency, then chill the egg in ice wtr, and save until needed. Then drop then in near boiling water just long enough to set the white, before serving.

You can try holding thm at 55C, but I would be afraid they would continue to get firmer, which I don't think you want. But try it, and let us know.

From a bacterial safety perspective,holding them at 55C would be safe, as would holding them at close to 0C, but nothing in between.

Bob

[Hassouni]

OK, I looked through the entire thread and didn't find what I'm looking for. 

 

I've used my Anova for in-the-shell eggs a few times, usually doing the 63ºC temp for 45-60m. Once I put them straight in, and a couple times also followed Kenji's guidelines here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-about-eggs.html as well as recs from this thread to chill in vinegar-ice-water overnight.

 

Putting them straight in was a mess, I couldn't peel the damn egg at all without destroying it.  Using Kenji's method, whether long-chilled or not, They were easier to peel, EXCEPT that a layer of white stuck to the shell, but the inner layer of white came out cleanly. The end result is rather reminiscent of onsen tamago, and "poached" for a minute to reheat, they're great, but I'm wondering if there's a way to peel them cleanly without ANY of the white sticking to the shell? I watched Dave Arnold's video on the 7ºC temperature variant in LTLT eggs, and it seemed each time he broke an egg, it came out without a fuss.

[rotuts]

"""  Putting them straight in was a mess """

 

what mess did you get ?  just peeling ?

 

peeling is actually  more difficult than it sounds, ie clean-ly

 

that has nothing to do w SV, it has to do with the egg.

[Hassouni]

Yeah, peeling sucked. basically tore the egg apart.

 

This video shows DA peeling with no issues...how!?!

[nickrey]

As Hassouni says this has more to do with its the egg. As an egg ages the white becomes thinner. This happens from the outside in. Thus when you cook an egg in the shell, particularly with an older egg, the more liquid part cooks differently from the more solid part. This is why many of us put eggs in some form of strainer prior to poaching. Doing so stops those spindly egg threads that you get if you put it in without straining. In a whole egg there is nowhere for this to go and it tends to stick to the shell. I'd suggest that Dave, like most chefs, used very fresh eggs. When I use the egg topper shown above, some white always sticks to the shell. I also tend to remove any separate white by rinsing gently under cold water prior to reheating.

[kayb]

I have never tried sous vide eggs, but I can testify to the peeling of fresh farm eggs, which are notoriously more difficult to peel than older eggs or grocery store eggs. I've found that if I take my eggs directly from the hot water, drain them, crack the shells all over, and then peel underneath running water, they will peel cleanly. I'm generally doing mine hard-boiled to devil or for salads, though, so I'm not sure how well this would work with soft-boiled. If it DID work and you peeled the egg, could you then return it to the 55C bath to bring back to serving temp?

[nickrey]

I put mine in 80C water for a short period. It gives a more conventional exterior to the poached egg and warms the inside up for service. It is similar to searing the outside of a sous vide cooked steak on a very hot pan to give a conventional seared effect.

[DouglasBaldwin]

Since I don't see it mentioned above, you can also use my egg calculator (http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-egg-calculator) to compute the cooking time at different bath temperatures for different yolk viscosities. It solves a differential equation to compute the yolk viscosity based on Vega's paper and my own, extensive, experiments and measurements.

[PedroG]

OK, I looked through the entire thread and didn't find what I'm looking for. 

 

I've used my Anova for in-the-shell eggs a few times, usually doing the 63ºC temp for 45-60m. Once I put them straight in, and a couple times also followed Kenji's guidelines here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-about-eggs.html as well as recs from this thread to chill in vinegar-ice-water overnight.

 

Putting them straight in was a mess, I couldn't peel the damn egg at all without destroying it.  Using Kenji's method, whether long-chilled or not, They were easier to peel, EXCEPT that a layer of white stuck to the shell, but the inner layer of white came out cleanly. The end result is rather reminiscent of onsen tamago, and "poached" for a minute to reheat, they're great, but I'm wondering if there's a way to peel them cleanly without ANY of the white sticking to the shell? I watched Dave Arnold's video on the 7ºC temperature variant in LTLT eggs, and it seemed each time he broke an egg, it came out without a fuss.

As I understand you prefer an egg similar to poached eggs, not an onsen tamago. This is achieved by delta-t-cooking, not by equilibrium-cooking, I explained this in detail in the egg chapter in the sous vide page of wikiGullet.

[nickrey]

If it helps, try to use the method that best peels boiled quails eggs. Crack the whole egg gently and start from the large end first. If you start from the middle or the smaller end, bye bye quail's egg.

[jackal10]

As has been said the secret  to peeling is to use old eggs - at least 2 weeks old

Alternately crack the raw egg onto a sheet of cling film, wrap it up and poach that

[Anna N]

As has been said the secret  to peeling is to use old eggs - at least 2 weeks old

Alternately crack the raw egg onto a sheet of cling film, wrap it up and poach that

Damn, jack! How exciting to see you back. Here's hoping you will spend more time with us as your presence is sorely missed.

[rotuts]

Ive done the cling film, buttered in a muffin pan for stability

 

its mentioned somewhere way back on an egg thread

 

works fine.  lots and lots of work though.

 

" over easy "  not so much work.

Edited March 2, 2015 by rotuts (log)