Eggs – Is leaving eggs out of the fridge, prior to cooking them a direct cause as to how shell break

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I have friend who went to culinary school who claims that cold eggs crack cleaner than eggs at room temperature. Do egg shells crack cleaner coming cold out of the fridge?

Does warming up to room temperature for a few minutes cause the eggs to crack less clean?

Best Answer

Assuming your fridge temperature is around 4 C (39 F) and your room temperature is 22 C (72 F) then that's a difference of 18 C or 33 F. The two temperatures are not particularly polar so why should it crack differently to when it comes straight from the fridge? It won't be like if you threw hot water onto a frozen window where it would crack, the 2 temperatures here are a lot more polar, 1 below freezing point and 1 near boiling point.

The change in temperature would be fairly gradually (I don't have any Scientific evidence for this but I know from experience as when I take an egg out of the freezer and wait for it to reach room temperature -for culinary purposes- it takes around 45 minutes).

Also on a chemical level, an egg shell being mainly calcium carbonate there is no reason for such a gradual change in temperature to weaken its structure especially as it is in the form of a very stable and strong shape. So no is the answer, I don't think it makes any difference in the weakness of an egg or how it cracks!

Hope this helps!