Pierce Eggs: What’s The Point With Hard-Boiled Eggs?

Pierce eggs: why are we doing this?

• Why are we poking the eggs? There is a small air pocket on the blunt side of the egg just below the shell. In the boiling water, the air inside the egg also heats up and expands.
• This is said to be the cause of bursting eggs in the saucepan. For this reason, we reach for the egg pick. If the air bubble is punctured, the air can escape during cooking.

Hard Boiled Eggs: Do You Really Need to Pierce Them?

• However, experts consider this theory unlikely. The air bubble in the egg is so small that expanding it has little effect. Rather, it is due to the brittle shell of the eggs.
• In one experiment, the WDR program Quarks & Co pierced 1,500 eggs and left 1,500 eggs unpierced. After cooking, about the same number of eggs were destroyed in both variants. On average, every tenth egg breaks, regardless of whether it is pierced or not.
• Tip: If you add some vinegar to the water, the protein that comes out will coagulate faster. This means that even broken eggs remain reasonably attractive.