[QUOTE=Cervaise]
Actually, in my experience, one tray hole = one egg white. I do this with some regularity; when I make hollandaise or mousse or something else that’s heavy on yolks and leaves me with extra egg whites, I’ll freeze 'em and bag 'em so I can later make angel food cake or a souffle or whatever. And the white from a typical grocery store egg, I’ve found, pretty much perfectly fills, or slightly overfills, the average ice cube tray hole. For an entire egg to fit in that space, you’d have to have really small eggs, or really large ice cube trays. Your egg mileage may vary.
[/QUOTE]
You can figure out your tray size by putting one egg’s mixture into one hole and seeing its level. If it overflows, put half the egg mixture into two holes and mark its level. Then you can use two cubes = 1 egg.
I have to ask the experts: why do uncooked eggs have a longer shelf life in the fridge than boiled ones (according to reccomendations)?
Boiling weakens the shell and in many cases results in microfractures or outright cracks, exposing the perishable insides to the nasty outside world. Similar reasoning behind why a piece of fruit rots much more quickly if its skin is damaged.
[QUOTE=Ellen Cherry]
I rely on Pullet’s advice – and that’s no yolk!
[/QUOTE]
You, ma’am, win the Pullet Surprise.
Ouch.
[QUOTE=Pullet]
An egg becoming unfresh can happen a couple of different ways. The egg can either lose moisture, lose protein adhesion, or it can become a breeding ground for bacteria or fungus.
When an egg is freshly laid into the world, it’s at the temperature of the hen’s body, about 107 degrees F. As it cools, the interior shrinks. There are tiny pores in the egg shell that allow air to pass through which a developing embryo would use to exchange gas with the outside. Since more of these pores are on the wide end of the egg, as the fresh egg cools and shrinks, an air pocket forms inside the egg on the wide end. That’s called the air cell.
As an unfertile egg sits around, it gradually loses moisture through those pores to the environment. The cardboard cartons are designed to slow that down somewhat. But, if left to their own devices, an egg will eventually dry out completely. Dipping the eggs in oil slows down the moisture loss, so the eggs are usable longer. Putting eggs in water to test their freshness is really a test to see how much moisture has been lost to the outside and, as a result, how much of that egg is now air cell.
The proteins in eggs will also gradually lose their structure, making them less gel-like. This is usually only important if you are using recipes that rely heavily on the adhesive properties of the egg. If you tried to cook old eggs sunny-side up, they would run all over the pan and be annoying. If you’re just scrambling them, then it doesn’t matter much. If you’re hard boiling them, you actually want your eggs to be a little old, so that they are slightly smaller then the shell after they are cooked and are therefore easier to peel. Turning eggs that are in storage probably would help keep the yolk in the center of the egg, making it less likely to stick to the shell and break when cracked open. Also, turning the egg means that the wide end with all its pores spends half the time sitting against a shelf, so that might slow down moisture loss. But there are pores all over the shell, so this effect is likely minimal at best. It would make you look at and handle the eggs periodically so you can find bad ones. Not the worst idea.
In the case of either water loss or protein degradation, unless extreme, the egg is still safe to eat after it is cooked. There is a local poultry professor here who will happily eat an egg that has been refrigerated for up to a year, though it might be a dried out husk.
Bacterial and fungal contamination can happen when there is a break in the shell or if, as mentioned above, the eggs are left standing around wet. Refrigerating and then warming the eggs is particularly bad, as the condensation combined with the expansion of the interior of the egg as it warms makes a suction effect, and all the bacteria on the outside are pulled into the egg with the water as a highway.
Gymnopithys’s grandma probably kept her eggs in a drawer with bran because it was convenient. In a drawer, they would be out of the way and protected from falling, and the bran kept them from rolling around when the drawer was opened. Keeping the eggs still is a big factor for making them seem to stay fresh longer. The more the eggs move, the more those interior proteins break down. When you measure freshness based on whether the whites run all over the pan at breakfast, eggs that were kept still will seem fresher than eggs that got shook. It’s why those little egg cups on the inside of refrigerator doors have fallen out of favor. The eggs would get shaken every time the door opened, and would lose freshness faster.
The folks who leave eggs to warm on the counter before baking: probably not a huge problem because cooking will kill most bad things that might have contaminated the eggs while they were warming up. However, try getting eggs directly from the source, if you can, the next time you have a recipe that relies on fluffiness. In all likelihood, you’ll get better results.
LSLguy are you sure it was the eggs? How did you cook them?
[/QUOTE]
Great info.
Wouldn’t taking an egg out of the fridge, which you say causes an expansion of the contents, actually create a pressure effect, and push water out of the pores, thus effectively making it more safe? Hey, I gotta know thus stuff!
[QUOTE=Pullet]
The folks who leave eggs to warm on the counter before baking: probably not a huge problem because cooking will kill most bad things that might have contaminated the eggs while they were warming up. However, try getting eggs directly from the source, if you can, the next time you have a recipe that relies on fluffiness. In all likelihood, you’ll get better results.
[/QUOTE]
This is the only part of your excellent post that I want to query… for one thing it seems to ignore that many people store their eggs at room temperature for weeks, with no ill effects (indeed, they’re not refrigerated in the shops here in the UK either - so it can’t be that bad, or some quasi-governmental busybody would be all over it).
Also, it sounds like you’re saying that a cold, fresh egg will be as good for baking a cake as one allowed to warm to room temperature. I’m fairly sure that’s not true. Did I misunderstand you there?
Down here the grocery store that I shop at actually stamps an expiration date on the shell. As cheap as eggs are I’d never take a chance on using one after that date. Matter of fact I start getting nervous about a week before they are scheduled to expire.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
This is the only part of your excellent post that I want to query… for one thing it seems to ignore that many people store their eggs at room temperature for weeks, with no ill effects (indeed, they’re not refrigerated in the shops here in the UK either - so it can’t be that bad, or some quasi-governmental busybody would be all over it).
[/QUOTE]
I believe the point was that while it isn’t good to take them from the fridge to room temperature, because of the temperature change and subsequent condensation making the shell easier for bacteria to penetrate, it’s not that bad if you are just going to cook them right after, because any bacteria that did get through the shell while it was wet would be killed soon. The idea is that if you take the cold eggs and let them warm up, letting the bacteria in, and then store them again rather than cooking them right away, the bacteria culture will grow inside the egg and cause it to go bad.
Hey Mangetout: Opal Cat clarified what I was trying to say beautifully. Eggs that are kept at room temperature the entire time after being laid are good for a few weeks, though they will shrink internally as they dry out. Eggs that are refrigerated, and then warmed to room temp, and then put back in the fridge become little bacterial breeding grounds.
As for baking, I was trying to say that a recently laid egg will likely work better than an egg that was bought from the store, whether you warm it up first or not. An egg that you got from the chicken yourself this morning will have less protein degradation than any egg you might buy at the store. Eggs at the store are fresh, but they’re not as fresh as that. They have to spend driving over from the farm, after all.
If you don’t have access to someone with chickens, you can ask your grocer when they are expecting their next shipment. You can also get eggs from a farmer’s market vendor, but be sure to explain why you want the freshest eggs they have. Sometimes the folks at farmers markets are actually resellers or brokers, and don’t know for sure when the eggs were collected.
Coffee Achiever: No, it won’t ooze like that. The egg is maximally filled right after it is laid, right? At 107 degrees, it’s filled completely without even the air cell at the wide end. As it cools, it loses volume primarily through the loss of water. It’s losing water all the time. Heating a cooled egg up to room temperature won’t make it ooze like you describe because there simply isn’t enough stuff left inside the shell to fill it completely.
Think about making hard boiled eggs. The eggs don’t ooze, even though you are heating them up to 212 degrees. Take the egg out of the water before it’s finished cooking and look at it if you want to experiment.
So is there a good way to clean eggs so that I can take them camping without having to worry? Just not refrigrate ones that I buy from my farmer seems to be the best.
[QUOTE=Great Dave]
So is there a good way to clean eggs so that I can take them camping without having to worry? Just not refrigrate ones that I buy from my farmer seems to be the best.
[/QUOTE]
You would probably be fine taking eggs from the farmers market (ie, ones that have been kept at room temperature) and packing them well enough so they don’t crack. The farmer should have washed them so they aren’t caked with manure. Obviously, don’t leave them in the sun, and make sure you cook them all the way before eating them. But that’s My Humble Opinion. Don’t sue me. 
[QUOTE=Pullet]
Hey Mangetout: Opal Cat clarified what I was trying
Coffee Achiever: No, it won’t ooze like that. The egg is maximally filled right after it is laid, right? At 107 degrees, it’s filled completely without even the air cell at the wide end. As it cools, it loses volume primarily through the loss of water. It’s losing water all the time. Heating a cooled egg up to room temperature won’t make it ooze like you describe because there simply isn’t enough stuff left inside the shell to fill it completely.
Think about making hard boiled eggs. The eggs don’t ooze, even though you are heating them up to 212 degrees. Take the egg out of the water before it’s finished cooking and look at it if you want to experiment.
[/QUOTE]
Not “ooze” (at least not visibly). I’m referring to the danger factor. The increase in temperature upon removing an egg from a refrigerator should cause an expansion of the contents, and this would cause a positive pressure in the interior, and force things --air, water in the pores, bacteria in the water in the pores–out, not pull it in. I’m guessing we’re talking very, very small amounts, but it still should not pull things in. And that should make the egg’s interior (relatively) more safe. This, of course, is assuming the shell remains a fixed size.
Allow me to apologize. I’ve read this forum for years, but only recently decided to put forth my opinions. If this rebuttal is out of line, please let me know. I hold you folks in highest regard. I just think that occasionaly being picky and technical is part of what this forum is all about. I don’t want to be asked to leave (at least, not this soon).
[QUOTE=Great Dave]
So is there a good way to clean eggs so that I can take them camping without having to worry? Just not refrigrate ones that I buy from my farmer seems to be the best.
[/QUOTE]
Aww. You’re sweet. Taking all those little dead chicken embryos on a nice trip out into the woods. Don’t let them sit too close to the fire, at night.
if they’re not fertilized they’re not embryos 
[QUOTE=Coffee Achiever]
Not “ooze” (at least not visibly). I’m referring to the danger factor. The increase in temperature upon removing an egg from a refrigerator should cause an expansion of the contents, and this would cause a positive pressure in the interior, and force things --air, water in the pores, bacteria in the water in the pores–out, not pull it in. I’m guessing we’re talking very, very small amounts, but it still should not pull things in. And that should make the egg’s interior (relatively) more safe. This, of course, is assuming the shell remains a fixed size.
[/QUOTE]
I think I saw what I did. My first post sucks.
Awful. I was trying to go for:
Cold egg –> warm egg –> condensation on egg + expansion of eggs contents –> put egg back in fridge –> contents shrink again and pull in the condensation, which is contaminated with bacteria from the outside.
Does that make more sense?
I’ve been in school so long, I’ve circled back around to crap writer again 
And then I completely misunderstood your posts, so my reading comprehension is gone too! Nooo!
[QUOTE=Pullet]
Hey Mangetout: Opal Cat clarified what I was trying to say beautifully. Eggs that are kept at room temperature the entire time after being laid are good for a few weeks, though they will shrink internally as they dry out. Eggs that are refrigerated, and then warmed to room temp, and then put back in the fridge become little bacterial breeding grounds.
[/quote]
Ah, got it, thanks.
Understood - actually, I remember reading some article about exactly how un-fresh supermarket eggs actually are - something about a ‘production date’ not needing to be related to the date they were actually laid, supposedly adding weeks to the permissible in-transit and storage time.
Fresher is better in most cases, but whatever eggs you have though, I think it’s better to let them warm to room temp before baking with them - it always seems to give a better rise that way - although I realise it’s anecdotal, I think it’s a common enough conviction amongst bakers that there must be something in it. I might try testing it sometime with cakes made from identical ingredients, excepting the starting temperature of the eggs.
[QUOTE=Great Dave]
So is there a good way to clean eggs so that I can take them camping without having to worry? Just not refrigrate ones that I buy from my farmer seems to be the best.
[/QUOTE]
Yep. I use one of those plastic egg carriers they sell in the camping aisle. If I have an obliging stream nearby, then I tie a rope around the handle, other end to a tree and dunk the egg holder into the stream*. Keeps 'em cooler. But I’ve also had them for two weeks at summer heat in my tent with no ill effects - although a few times I wondered if they’d soft-boil from the heat!
*If stream water makes you oogy, you can always dunk the eggs in some bleach water before cracking them open to use them.
[QUOTE=Coffee Achiever]
Allow me to apologize. I’ve read this forum for years, but only recently decided to put forth my opinions. If this rebuttal is out of line, please let me know. I hold you folks in highest regard. I just think that occasionaly being picky and technical is part of what this forum is all about. I don’t want to be asked to leave (at least, not this soon).
[/QUOTE]
You might be wrong, but there’s no way your post is out of line. It’s similar to dozens of others posts appearing on this site every day.
And you’d have to try much harder to be asked to leave. Like insulting other dopers or something similar.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Yep. I use one of those plastic egg carriers they sell in the camping aisle. If I have an obliging stream nearby, then I tie a rope around the handle, other end to a tree and dunk the egg holder into the stream*. Keeps 'em cooler. But I’ve also had them for two weeks at summer heat in my tent with no ill effects - although a few times I wondered if they’d soft-boil from the heat!
[/QUOTE]
I just use an insulated cool box or bag - if you’re keeping meat or milk in it, then it needs to be chilled somehow, but for eggs, just keeping them in an insulated box protects them from extreme fluctuations in temperature.
Next time I’m at the supermarket, I’m going to take a look at the ‘best before’ date on some of the (unrefrigerated) packs of eggs - I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a month in the future at least.