Plus, try getting only one of the (blunt) tines in contact with a shell, with enough force to pierce it.
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This is still why I do it. 
When the eggs in the fridge are old enough that I’m starting to distrust them, into the pot they go, to be hard boiled for egg salads, to be devil-ed, or what have you.
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If you look at really old recipes (pre wwii at least, but going pretty far back), especially baking recipes. They’ll often specify how old of an egg to use.
Cause if you’re getting your eggs from that chicken over there you always have a range of ages around.
But it isn’t like there’s a clean gradient on this. From freshest and hardest to peel to oldest and easiest. After a couple weeks or there abouts it’s all kinda the same. Easy enough to peel, except when they’re not.
The big differences to tend to be in the thickness of the white, strength of the yolk, and ratio of thin white to strong white. Older eggs there’s more of the watery portion of white, thinner whites over all, and the yolk is more prone to breakage and harder to seperate. So it’s nowhere near as intuitive as fresher eggs for more delicate dishes.
A fresh egg holds together better so it’s better for something like a poached egg. But an older egg is easier to mix together so can be better for something like an omelette where you are beating a whole egg. And if you are separating eggs a fresh yolk is harder to burst, but a fresh white is harder to remove. So fresh is good, but more towards the middle.
And for boiled eggs, very old eggs seem to be more prone to cracking and leaking. Usually in ruin the egg fashion.
Practically none of it seems to matter much unless you want to be super finicky. Easy enough to get around it by just using another egg.
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Best about this post is that everyone from germanophone countries freaks out at the idea that there are people who do not do this.
In fact, I came here to freak out about it and found plenty of people already freaked out.
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Yup. Same.
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Lots of folks think the pin prick lets in nasty bacteria etc, but I think it is OK since it is going straight into boiling water. I’ve tried many methods and find that pressure cooking a half dozen eggs for three minutes in the InstantPot makes for yolks that are still slightly gelid and super easy to peel hard boiled eggs.
For soft boilers we use a timer on boiling water or my Canadian MiL sent us one of those weird red timer thingees. However the absolute best gadget for soft boiled eggs: Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher
So much fun to use and trims the top of the egg perfectly (I prefer at least two whacks of the ball on the egg for a clean cut). Best $15-20 I ever spent on amazon
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I thought you were just messing with us, but no. This is brilliant.
Pro tip: Leaving the egg in boiling water for the time it takes to say “eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher” twice results in the perfect soft-boiled egg.
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I absolutely agree. 100% of the time, 5 minutes in an electronic pressure cooker results in fully cooked hard boiled eggs that peel without the shell sticking.
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That’s the process I use also, but with one exception. I fill the pot with cold water, place the eggs in, then bring it to the boil (approx. 5.5 minutes) then boil for 10 minutes.
To crack the shells, roll the egg between your hands.
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Same here. Another two thumbs up for it. The hole is to reduce cracked eggs during the cook. Seems to work well for that.
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I have followup questions.
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Aha. Yes, that would make a lot of sense, then.
This and @Ryuthrowsstuff’s comment makes me wonder what the mechanism behind “aging” eggs is and whether it does, indeed have to do with moisture content. I wonder if eggs that have been washed would “age” faster (ie lose more moisture and theoretically have a more separable membrane). Of course I am assuming that this has something to do with moisture content and not some sort of biochemical reaction.
You and me both, brother.
Also: 
Yeah, this sounds similar to what I was describing above. I like the shell to flex with my fingers as I remove it so it doesn’t tend to scoop or gouge out sections.
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It’s been over a year now, but you’re invited to the next one!
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Moisture loss, but I think also proteins breaking down. I don’t recall ever hearing anything about washing making any of it go faster. An egg is kinda alive, stuff’s going on in there. All the removal of the membrane apparently does is allow things into an egg. A washed egg still loses moisture and proteins still weaken over time.
We grew up with chickens and you can watch the air pocket get larger as the egg gets older when shining a light through it. Old enough eggs the yolk effectively collapses into the white, and the white basically becomes water. Sort of how you know it’s too old to eat. They don’t get smelly for a bit after that.
As far as I’m aware commercial eggs end up getting stored that long for purely logistical reasons. Storing shit for a while before sale helps stabilize supply and pricing. We do it with a lot of shit.
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I have a vintage Sunbeam one of these, that was my mom’s. It’s older than I am & I’m 67. The piercer in the lid is still super-sharp.
Here’s one like it for sale.
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F$%^k Alton Brown and his “no single taskers” rule… if I ever see a Rollie for sale, I’m buying one. Challenge: no easy Amazon or other online purchase… must be a garage/boot sale find.
The always lovely Emmy has a good review here. I think I will giggle like she does when I see that egg schlong extruding from it.
From what I have experienced in trying to boil and peel fresh eggs (zero to 2 days, always given a cold shock after boiling), is that I always noticed that the egg white is more blobby, less runny, and that when boiled, it consists of several, almost fibrous, layers, like an onion. So the problem is not only that the egg white sticks to the shell, but it also comes off in onion layers while you try to peel it. That gradually changes over the course of days, into egg whites that I’m familiar with in supermarket eggs.
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This looks very common, to be honest.
if you put an uncracked egg in a saucepan of cold water
for eight minutes exactly the yoke will come out softly softly…
the real trick is getting the shell off the egg though
