What in the world! Freezing temps hard boiled eggs?

[Ltvo]

So I went to make a two egg over easy lunch today. Cracked the first egg in the pan… Grabbed another egg from the freshly laid (one day old egg) egg carton, cracked it and to my surprise it looked hard boiled. Scratched my head and put it aside and grabbed another, and that one again appeared to be hard boiled. Went to a different carton of eggs that were laid last week, grabbed an egg, cracked it and got the second egg for my lunch. WTH?

Is it possible that in freezing temperatures that an egg can become “hard boiled “from freezing? I collect the eggs every day. This is the first time this is happened and both eggs were from yesterday. It was 6° with the windchill. These are eggs from my spring chickens, though I can’t see this making a difference. I have had chickens for years and this is the first time this has happened. It is much colder today and am going out now to collect eggs and will crack an egg while I’m out there to see what they look like today.

So strange. Has this happened to anyone else and/or does anyone have any thoughts on this… I’ve looked online and it’s produced nothing.

 

[azygous]

Someone is likely playing a joke on you. A frozen egg white would still be clear as the proteins in it are still condensed into tiny capsules. It requires a temperature of at least 145F to begin unraveling these protein capsules which then form a lattice, turning the albumen the white color we associate with a cooked egg.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Is it possible that in freezing temperatures that an egg can become “hard boiled “from freezing?

As stated by the first poster.. frozen (fresh) eggs look gelatinous.. not boiled.. very different.

It's pretty easy to mix up the egg cartons.. in MY experience.. or maybe another family member did something (planned on eating some eggs/moved the cartons around unintentionally) and it hasn't yet been discussed/discovered??

Also.. I'm glad to see it's not a "lash egg" (salpingitis) we're looking at.. as that does look like cooked egg WHITES when cut open.. though not *usually* like a normal egg shape.

Lovely eggs!

 

[16 and me]

Yep. Either someone boiled them for later, or someone's playing a joke. We just got through -26 cold and when I collected an egg that stayed out too long, it was frozen. The eggshell split, and I when I cracked it to feed it to the dog, it was as the previous posters had described. The membrane kept it in tact, but it was like jelly inside.

 

[Ltvo]

Someone is likely playing a joke on you. A frozen egg white would still be clear as the proteins in it are still condensed into tiny capsules. It requires a temperature of at least 145F to begin unraveling these protein capsules which then form a lattice, turning the albumen the white color we associate with a cooked egg.

Don’t think a joke since I live alone and don’t have neighbors…next idea/thought? Unless it was one of my boys, Ormond or Tucker?

 

[azygous]

Do you recall hard boiling any eggs within the last few weeks?

Ormond and Tucker do look like a suspicious pair of precocious pre-teens that would absolutely play such a trick on mom.

 

[azygous]

This explains with simple graphics what happens to proteins when they are heated. If proteins are not subjected to heat, they remain in their original encapsulated form and the egg white will not be white. If you freeze an uncooked egg, the water in the egg freezes but it doesn't change the proteins so they will form an interlaced structure as they would if heated. The egg remains a simple gelatinous substance, just frozen. It's physics. There is no other way to get egg white to be a solid and colored white than to cook it.

 

[fowltemptress]

Someone boiled those eggs. If you're sure no one else could have done it, and forgetfulness isn't usual for you, check your house's carbon monoxide levels. In my house, forgetfulness would definitely be the prime culprit.

 

[azygous]

We who live alone seem to have a mysterious "roommate". How else to explain all the things that mysteriously go missing and just as mysteriously reappear? And yes, I can completely forget doing something I had just done minutes before. Reality loves to play games with our minds.

 

[16 and me]

Do you ever boil eggs and put them back in a carton? If that is a possibility, that's probably what happened, and the cartons got mixed up. I'd check all eggs in that carton - you can "candle" them by shining a flashlight on the shell - if you can see inside it's raw, but of it's opaque and dark it's cooked.