Peeling Farm Fresh Hard Boiled Eggs

I've been buying Farm Fresh eggs through the farmer's market this summer.  This is pretty much my first experience with them.  And I like them all in all.  There is really no consistency in color or size, but that doesn't much matter to me.

What I wasn't aware of was that it is nearly impossible to peel a very fresh hard boiled egg.  I mean it shreds the white off and leaves you with a mess.  I boiled a dozen of them last week and thought I would lose my mind trying to get them peeled.  I was attempting to make deviled eggs and they were ugly.  Luckily it was only us eating them.

So I asked around, and everyone has their pet tricks of the trade.  I asked the farmer who I bought the eggs from and she said you need to let them sit in the fridge at least a week or more so they aren't quite so fresh.  I'm not so sure I like that idea.  Because then, why don't I just buy store organic eggs?

I don't boil eggs often, but usually, I put them in a pot, fill the pot with water, put it on high and then boil for about 10 minutes.  I don't like overcooked eggs...when the yolk turns grayish green and bounces.  Yuck.  Then in more recent years, it worked well to place the eggs in a pot, fill pot to just above the eggs with cold water, place on stove on high, and as soon as it begins a hard boil, shut off the burner and let them sit there for a half hour or so.  Then it always seems to work best to run cold water in the pot of eggs, and attempt to peel them under water.  That is until I encountered farm fresh eggs.

Among the tips for peeling, I found that the cold water bath and peeling under water AND often cracking the egg and rolling it around to crush the shell well, is a constant suggestion.  But other suggestions included adding salt to the water, adding vinegar to the water and adding baking soda to the water.  So today, I conducted a Mr. Wizard experiment to see if any of these methods are helpful.

I treated the eggs basically the same at first.  I place four eggs into three pots.  The pots are not the exact same size because I don't have three pots the same size.  But I placed the eggs into the pot, covered with cold water and put on the burner on high.  I added salt to one (maybe as much as 2-3 tsps), vinegar in one (perhaps a tablespoon or so), and baking soda to the third (maybe one or two tsps).  As soon as they began to boil, I shut the burners off and the eggs sat for at least 30 minutes in their hot water while I went about other chores.

Next, I drained the water and completely covered each pot of eggs with ice cubes and then filled each pan with cold water.  Then I began peeling.  To say that nothing really helped would be the summary of the experiment.  If I had to make an opinion, I would say that the egg water with the soda in it had a slight advantage, but as you can see from the photos, some peeled easily and some shredded in each group.  In the photo, the salt eggs are on the left, the soda eggs are in the middle and the vinegar eggs are on the right of your screen.

Another weird thing I noticed is that the eggs with salt and the eggs with vinegar did not have fully cooked yolks.  The eggs with the soda had fully cooked, firm yolks.  Why is that do you suppose?  And the slightly underdone yolks didn't really want to mash very well, so my deviled eggs are a bit lumpy.  I'll still eat them.  I didn't spend half a day on this experiment for naught.

For some reason, very fresh eggs (and these came out of the chicken 5 days ago), have a very tough membrane that adheres to the white like grim death.

In conclusion:  Nothing really helps besides letting the eggs be in the fridge until they are not so fresh.  Also it does seem to help to have a VERY cold plunge when the cooking is complete and to attempt to peel them under the water (which almost froze my fingers off).  And I might try using the soda trick next time as it may have helped SLIGHTLY, and I'll take any help I can get.