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Comment on YSK How to cook a perfect (hard) boiled egg

If one really wants perfect, they should read Periodic cooking of eggs from the journal Nature earlier this year. Everybody that has implemented it, claims it works great.

For the periodic method, scientists alternated submerging the eggs for two minutes in boiling water at 100 C (212 F) and lukewarm water at 30 C (86 F). This cycle was repeated eight times for 32 minutes.

— from: Scientists developed a new method for the perfect boiled egg, and you can test it at home

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MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’m sure it works, but its it’s not the only way to to cook a perfect egg. And it is hilariously inefficient both in terms of energy spent to boil water for 32 minutes, and effort required to direct one’s focus primarily to boiling eggs for 32 minutes (plus prep time).

What is funny to me is that this process is just pulse width modulation which is exactly how electric stoves work. But instead of applying the duty cycle to the water to keep it at a steady sub-boil temperature, they applied it to directly to the egg to even out the temperature gradient inside the egg.

You achieve a very similar result by just doing a 2 minute flash boil to set the outer whites and then dropping the temperature with cold water or ice and just walking away while a sous vide stick controls an even temperature for the rest of the time. Now, I don’t have a sous vide stick, but I did get a variable temperature electric kettle for tea, so I have been using that for several years now.

What makes the periodic method consistent and ripe for virality is:

It reduces the impact of the most common unregulated variables: like pot size, burner power, egg:water ratio; it uses self regulating temperatures; and it’s hard to forget about the eggs since you are constantly monitoring them.

It is accessible. It doesn’t require any special equipment and it is easy to remember: 2-in, 2-out, x8.
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- theherk@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  You’re probably correct that there are other methods for perfect eggs, but I believe that is a bit reductive. Boiling first then reducing the temperature, while similar, is definitely not the same as periodic temperature change, aside from it adding the same total energy to the system. But the rate that energy is added is the critical variable.
  
  Don’t get me wrong, your method is good, but I don’t think the method in the paper only has the advantages you list. The periodic temperature change is important, and they detail precisely why that is.
  
  Having said all that, I’m certainly not doing this. I’m all about easy and don’t need eggs to be a certain way. I just thought it was neat.
  
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