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Quick and easy test using a glass of water to tell if you have fresh eggs, moderately fresh eggs, or old ones that should be thrown away.
Don’t you just love the way truly fresh eggs look in a bowl after you crack them? The yolks are so perfectly rounded and the whites whip up into the fluffiest meringue!
Fresh eggs go with the territory when you purchase from a local farm. Good quality, pastured chicken, goose, and duck eggs sell quickly enough that there isn’t any need for the tricks the egg industry uses to prolong egg freshness.
These questionable techniques include chemical-laced washing, partial freezing, and cold storage for weeks at a time before they hit your supermarket shelf.
These practices differ considerably from methods for preserving egg freshness at home!
Even if you buy organic eggs from Whole Foods or other health food stores, it is possible to get old eggs.
Old eggs not only don’t taste as good, in my opinion, but they also don’t poach nicely into that perfect egg shape that sits so pretty on top of a slice of sprouted toast or sourdough English muffin.
Do you suspect your fresh eggs might be less than really fresh?
If so, here are two clues that you need to find another egg source as suggested by Kenji Lopez-Alt, Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats.
The Julian Date Tells the Tale
In the United States, every egg carton sold in a store is required to be stamped with a number between 000 and 365.
This number is the Julian Date and indicates the day of the year that the eggs were cleaned and packed into the carton.
A carton stamped with 000 means the eggs were packed on January 1 and a number of 213 means they were packed on August 2.
The bottom line is that you want a date as high as possible ideally only a few days to a week from the Julian date of the day you are purchasing the eggs.
Do not look at the date just to the right of the Julian Date as this is the expiration date of the eggs and could be up to six weeks after the eggs were packed!
For example, an egg carton stamped with the numbers 015 Feb 28 means that the eggs were packed on January 15 but the eggs can be sold until February 28 – a month and a half later!
Who wants six-week-old eggs that the store can legally sell as “fresh”?
Not me!
The Float Test for Fresh Eggs
The second way to test the freshness of your egg is to carefully place the egg in a cup of water.
To test multiple eggs at once as shown in the photo above, use a large pot.
- The freshest eggs will sink and remain flat lengthwise at the bottom of the cup.
- Semi-fresh eggs will stand up on one end and not lie flat at the bottom. They may also partially float in the water but remain fully submerged.
- Old eggs that should be tossed will float at the very top of the water.
In short, the older the egg, the more it floats.
The reason the float test works is because an air pocket in the fatty portion of the egg increases in size over time.
This air pocket is the cause of the increased floating action of older eggs in the water.
Blood Spot Eggs
Another way to spot a fresh egg is to shine a light through the shell. This is called “candling”. If you see that the egg yolk has a blood spot, this is an indication that the egg is quite fresh.
While blood spots are fairly common, they don’t happen often in commercial eggs because eggs with any defects are removed before packaging.
Thus, this test is only helpful if you obtain the eggs locally from a small farm or market.
Overall, the float test is the best option to test all your eggs regardless of where you purchased them.
Why Freshness Matters
As with any food, the fresher the better….for taste as well as nutrition.
Who wants eggs that have been semi-frozen and in cold storage for weeks before you even get them home just to increase shelf life?
Certainly, this is not a good option particularly if you are soft boiling the egg to feed your baby the warm, liquid yolk as a traditional first food!
Fresh eggs also separate better. A nice, perky yolk can be separated easily with your hands without a single drop mixing in with the white to ruin your macaroons!
Finally, fresh eggs are so much easier to poach. Fresh eggs have tighter whites as well as yolks that retain their shape better as they cook.
So if Eggs Benedict or another breakfast egg recipe is your thing, you will want to ensure that your eggs are as fresh as possible.
And, don’t forget. Nature’s perfect food is delicious later in the day too. Check out these ideas for lunch eggs or dinner recipes using eggs to get you started.
More Information
Why Organic Store Eggs are a Scam
What Oxidizes the Cholesterol in Eggs?
Best Egg Substitute (plus video how-to)
Just a quick note for those who have chickens….fresh eggs are great until it comes time to hard boil them. Fresh eggs won’t easily peel when hard boiled! That is why I have learned to set some aside a few weeks prior to Easter for my deviled eggs. They look prettier without all those pock marks! Vanity? You bet! The girls want to be represented well at Easter! 🙂
We also have chickens. I avoided making deviled eggs for the longest time. I tried setting eggs aside for a few weeks and they still were hard to peel. On the backyard chicken forum, I read that boiling fresh eggs in 2 Tbl. salt to 1 quart water and then immersing them in ice water would enable them to peel. It works every time. You have to use that much salt. Less won’t work. Also, the eggs don’t taste salty at all.
Thanks so much, Sharon. I’ve been wondering how to avoid the ugly eggs. I’m going to try the salt trick now!
I haven’t tried it yet but I’ve read that “hard boiling” eggs by baking them in the shell make them easy to peel too. The instructions said to put each egg in a hole of a muffin tin, put in the oven (without preheating) turn on to 350 and let bake for 30 minutes.
Wonderful Info! I know that my eggs are always super fresh. At least twenty-four of them come out of the coop everyday 🙂
Can you comment on how to tell the quality of the egg, apart from freshness? I thought that a darker and brighter yolk meant the chickens were eating their greens, as they should.
Nope, eating their grubs, as they should 😉
I just went back to the UK for a couple of weeks and it’s crazy how different the eggs in the supermarket are there. They don’t refrigerate them in the stores which means they can’t be that old and apparently it’s illegal to wash the eggs. The reasoning is that:
1. It weakens the shells and can contaminate them.
2. If you can’t wash the eggs then you have to keep a much cleaner environment for the chickens.
The shells on the eggs are much more like farm eggs than the ones in the US. They’re like little rocks!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-american-eggs-would-be-illegal-in-a-british-supermarket-and-vice-versa/
The egg theory is correct. Fresh eggs’ withies and yolks have higher density then the old one. Runny whites from the fresh eggs could be due to the environmental stress or other unfavorable conditions. In general, fresh eggs have tighter whites. Also, if the eggs shell has an unusual shape and some calcifications around the shell, excessive brown spots, or transparent shell – the chicken was in some kinds stress: environmental, nutritional, or not well chicken. The color of the egg’s white and yolk is a good indicator of the chicken diet. Clear white and orange yolk – indicates that the chicken was primarily feed sprouts, worms, and a few grain (best eggs). The yellower the white = more corn, soy, and grain in the chicken feed (worst egg). Most of the large eggs producer add Yellow color to the chicken feed to make egg yolk look yellower.
Loved your article on how to tell if eggs are fresh and have forwarded the info.
However, the info did not apply to the eggs my son bought…….they were marked:
Best by May 8 (on first line)……..
then on second line it read: 12P1691CO84M………
Can you decifer that info?
Look around on the carton maybe on the other side or on the top. The Julian date is required to be on there somewhere if the eggs are retail at a store.
Also loved your article, and also have the same problem. I have Vital Farms eggs from Wholefoods (certified humane, raised outdoors), the stamp shows
398206413
BEST BEFORE
APR18
I also spotted hardly visible letters: L H W on the bottom of the carton.
Called the Wholefoods store to ask – they didn’t know anything about it.
Also, if you are not in the US, Julian date may not be on the carton. Other countries have other rules. The float test works everywhere though 🙂
I know for a fact that fresh eggs do not always equal tighter whites. We have 12 hens and I have noticed that the weather (sunshine, temperature, etc) greatly affects egg production AND quality. Many times I will crack an egg that has just been gathered and the whites will spread all over the skillet. I’m not quite sure what causes it – haven’t been able to find anyone who knows – but it will happen. Prior to owning my own hens I had used the tight white theory to judge egg freshness from my local farm, but now I am experiencing that that isn’t necessarily true. Although, more often than not, the whites are tight rather than runny.
Sarah, as the hen get older(2 yrs and older), the whites become runny and the yolk is flattened. Best to let the girls lay no longer than 2 yrs, then into the stew pot.
Sorry, meant Amy.
Carolyn, that’s been my experience with eggs too.
Yes, I agree Amy. We have had chickens for 5 yrs now and sell eggs, so we always do the water test to check for bad ones (any egg that floats immediately should be tossed) and I even have a customer who wants his eggs at least a week old, because he likes the flavor. He grew up in Mexico and says that folks there know that they taste better! Ok, I prefer mine fresh (1-3 days) and I do not refrigerate unless they have been wet or washed and the cuticle has been removed. (This always gets an argument from some..) One of my customers is from England and he said that eggs are on the same aisle as bread…unrefrigerated! He says that we Americans make things harder sometimes! Ha! Anyway, love my chickens! Oh, one more thing! I researched how long an unrefrigerated egg could last in a cool, dark room and believe it or not…6 MONTHS! A gentleman did a study on it, just out of curiosity and found that in his cool, dry, dark closet..they stayed that long! AMAZING!
dont have any tips to add but i have a question…where is the best place to store eggs? fridge?
I refrigerate because of the heat and humidity where I live and also because some of my eggs are fertilized as my farmer has a few roosters running around.
Well, my eggs are pretty old, I’m 52!
Xo Xo
🙂
Nice tips. Thanks.
This website will tell you what day of the year it is so you can check it before going to the store for those eggs: http://www.epochconverter.com/epoch/daynumbers.php