and the BEST way to boil an egg is.....

WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME UNLESS YOU ARE WELL TRAINED AT EATING LARGE QUANTITIES OF BOILED EGGS.

I've wanted to solve the mystery for years.  There are so many ways your mommas do it, but really, what the best way to boil an egg?  With the help of facebook, I asked the world "what's the best way to boil an egg for easy peeling."  As I suspected, I received a lot of answers.  10 different ways to boil an egg, according to my facebook friends, but still which one is the best?  I chose to enter those hot waters alone.

8 eggs were chosen from the same dozen.  4 variations were used to boil the eggs.   2 eggs were boiled for each of the 4 methods.  All eggs were boiled in a stainless steel pot with 6 cups of water.

METHODS: 

Method 1:  Put cold eggs in cold water, bring to a boil, turn off heat.  Rest in water for 10 minutes.  Remove from water, set in a bowl to cool.

Method 2:  Put cold eggs in cold water with ½ tsp baking soda.  Bring to a boil, turn off heat.  Rest in water 10 minutes.  Remove from water, set in a bowl to cool.

Method 3:  Put cold eggs in cold water, bring to a boil, turn off heat.  Leave eggs in water for 10 minutes.  Remove from water and set in ice water until cool to touch. 

Method 4:  Put cold eggs in cold water with 1 T of vinegar.  Bring to a boil, boil for 10 minutes.  Remove from water, set in a bowl to cool. 

RESULTS:

Method 1: For both eggs, the shell peeled away from the egg easily, but in many pieces with minimal tearing.  Good taste, good texture

Method 2:  For both eggs, the shell peeled away from egg with slight difficulty, in many pieces with slight tearing of the egg.  Good taste, good texture

Method 3: 1 egg peeled away in large pieces with difficulty and had more tearing than any other egg.  The second egg, the shell peeled away with great ease in 4 large pieces with zero tearing.  Both eggs had great taste and great texture

Method 4:  For one egg, the shell peeled away with ease in large pieces, with no tearing.  The second egg, the shell was difficult to remove with maximum tearing.  Good flavor, terrible rubbery texture.

DISCUSSION:

With much disappointment, the answer is still unclear.  The two easiest eggs to peel were from different methods (Method 3 & Method 4).  One egg from Method 3 was very easy to peel and one egg from Method 4 was easy to peel; while one egg from each method was difficult to peel.  Because flavor and texture are also important when considering an egg’s overall value, METHOD 3 is chosen as the best way to boil an egg.  So, until further studies are conducted, I suggest next time you need hard boiled eggs, have a bowl of ice water ready to place your eggs in for cooling. 

FUTURE STUDIES:  

Future studies may find more information by using eggs from a variety of expiration dates, have more eggs per method used, or test other methods suggested. 

CONTRIBUTIONS: 
Thanks to Jesse Clark, Tess Jordan, Charity Jolly, Dana Rogers, Sally Smith, Michael Quercia, Shea Beal, and Jenni Brinegar for suggestions on how to boil eggs.  Thanks to Ammen for all the assistance and tasting, and last, but not least, thank you Ella for handling the 8 eggs that I ate.  ;)