The hen's egg: Factors affecting shell splitting during boiling

Synopsis

Experiments are described from which it is concluded that the shell will split when an egg is boiled if thermal expansion of the egg's liquid or gaseous contents, which have a higher coefficient of expansion than the shell, is insufficiently relieved by escape through the membranes and pores. The probability of splitting was enhanced if the shell had low structural strength due to a pre‐existing crack or to large size, skew shape or low effective thickness; once these factors had been taken into account there was no significant effect of the shell's aspect ratio, colour, glossiness, roughness or degree of ridging, nor of the hen's age or a strain history of selection for egg production. The incidence of splitting depended also on storage time and temperature: it was very low in newly laid eggs; in eggs stored at room temperature it rose to a maximum at about 5 d, then fell and was again low after about 21 d; in eggs stored at — 2 °C the time‐scale was increased and the incidence of splitting was still high after 14 d storage. These effects are due to two changes occurring during storage: progressive reduction of permeability of the membranes and shell to the liquid contents of the egg, which impedes escape of the contents when they expand during cooking, and progressive increase in the size of the air space, which provides expansion space. Allowing refrigerated eggs to warm to room temperature before cooking and adding salt to the cooking water did not significantly affect the incidence of splitting; putting eggs into cold rather than boiling water did not reduce the incidence of splitting except when the air space was large, following prolonged storage at room temperature.

The belief, common among housewives, that shell splitting occurs more commonly now than in earlier decades may be well‐founded but, if so, the change is probably due to a combination of two practices that have been introduced to maintain interior egg quality but which coincidentally raise the probability of shell‐splitting during boiling: rapid distribution from hen to housewife and refrigerated storage. There is no evidence that shells are now thinner, that hens of modern, high‐production strains lay eggs with weaker shells or that white shells are weaker than brown ones.