4 hours ago, btbyrd said:As I was typing this, Anna beat me to the punch. But.
If you want a soft boiled egg, soft boil an egg. It takes less time and will give you the firm whites you seem to be wanting. And it should be noted that I've never seen anyone advertise a SV egg as a close alternative to a soft boiled egg. A poached egg, sure. But not a soft boiled egg. You may have set yourself up for failure simply by having inaccurate expectations about the result.
I don't know how you're eating them, but if you're using a "clacker" to do it and eating it directly from the shell... I'd just leave SV eggs alone. Best practice for serving SV eggs is to first crack them onto a plate or into a slotted spoon so that the loose whites will run off. Using fresh eggs can help things there, but you'll still have problems some of the time. There's always some percentage of egg white in low-temp eggs that's goopy and less than appetizing. Or you could boil your SV eggs for 3 minutes before-or-after their time in the bath to set up the whites. But that's silly.
I'd just boil an egg.
I think you misunderstand how firm I want. This was like egg soup. It would have taken additional time or a hotter bath to approach even a coddled state. These were only medium eggs, too.
But thanks for confirming that SVing a soft boiled egg is a waste of time. It's what I figured, but I suckered into the whole precision/better texture thing. Silly me.
I may give it another go, if for no other reason than to assess the internal temps vis a vis refrigerated start and room temp
