Is there anyway to tell when an egg has 2 yolks?

[ipsedixit]

Y'know, other than cracking it open?

[chocolatejam]

We get eggs (ungraded) from friends who raise chickens. The young hens lay small eggs and often double yolkers. As the same hens get olded, their eggs get bigger and usually have just one yolk. Also depending on the bred of hen, they are many different colors of egg shell. One bread is called Easter Egg and they lay pastel colored blues, pinks, yellow, purples. Such fun! We never know what we are going to get - other than very fresh eggs.

[Karl S]

There's not much more yolk in a double yolked egg than in a single yolked egg. It's pretty irrelevant for baking purposes.

I find double yolks are most common in jumbo eggs during the summer with chickens that have lots of exposure to natural light and air.

[rohirette]

Even in baking, I don't make anything that would suffer from having had an extra yolk fished out. Or even left in.

It just sounds like a lot of effort for something that happens so rarely.

[dave_c]

Interesting that this is coming up.

I've cooked my fair share of eggs for many, many years. Only recently, last 6 months, have I've seen double-yolkers, so far two eggs months apart..

I doubt the extra yolk messes up recipes.

[drewskiSF]

we recently mad a batch of deviled eggs from XL cage free eggs.

4 of 12 were double yolkers and it did kinda mess things up because the wall of egg whites was very thin around the double yolks and we ended up breaking a few so they weren't fillable.

first time either of us had seen a double yolk egg. when it rains it pours.

[sparrowgrass]

I used to be an egg grader for USDA. Yes, there is a simple way to check for double yolks, no yolks, blood or meat spots or other egg defects. This was mentioned in earlier posts--eggs are 'candled' before sale.

In an egg production facility, all eggs roll over a brilliantly lighted table, and funny looking eggs are removed, either by human hands or, in more sophisticated systems, they are removed by the machinery. You can do it at home--use a bright flashlight, cover the lens with aluminum foil with a hole about the size of a dime over the light. Go into a darkened room, and you will be able to see the yolk quite clearly.

Double yolkers are almost always much larger than normal eggs, so you are more likely to see them in the jumbo/XL cartons.

[rockandroller1]

I have to try that candling. That sounds like a cool home science experiment.

Oh, and in my experience, I've only seen double yolks in the jumbo cartons. Not large or medium or from my CSA/local farm eggs.

[pj26]

I think it can be down to the hens (whether or not it is age as mentioned above could be a factor). My aunt has chickens and there are two hens that lay double yokers about 80% of the time - we can't figure out why, they just do!

[MiriamWoodstock]

Similar to what others have said, I find them in the largest eggs (jumbo?). I have been buying Large/XL for a while, and I haven't seen any in those for months. But, I guess you're stuck with whatever egg size the baking recipe calls for.

[Goldendog]

There must be some way to determine yolk content because a "semi" commercial egg farmer near me in Millington, Mich ( meaning he raises enough to supply small markets in a 3 or 4 county area). He has a factory outlet of sorts where he sells eggs to motorists. In his coolers he has cartons of all doubles (about $1 extra over jumbos) down to little eggs that essentially have no yolks at all.

I agree, if you're looking for doubles, see a farm market or yellow pages for egg producers. If you're looking to avoid them because of minute changes in a recipe I don't think if you tossed the one in a thousand you might get by chance that it would break the bank.

[coll]

That's what I was going to say, some farmers sell them specifically so either they candle them or know their chickens. I worked at a deli making egg sandwiches for 3 years, we estimated 1000 eggs a day so 365,000 eggs and very very rare. Except one time, we had almost a whole carton of double yolks. (Carton = 30 dozen) Not that you would know in an egg sandwich.

[greygarious]

I didn't mind in the least when every single jumbo egg in the carton from the local poultry farm was a double-yolker but next time I remarked to the farmer that I'd never encountered them much before. He said that he had a lot of new laying hens, and that when young hens begin laying, they tend to have doubles. To me, it does not look like the yolk-to-white ratio differs enough to notice or to make a recipe difference.

[justlizikaria]

I can confirm the theory of young hens that just start laying produce the highest percentage of double yolkers, also completely round eggs! eggs with no shell! ridiculously small eggs, and rough-shelled eggs. The blood spots are actually called "meat spots" although there is occasionally blood in the egg. All these variations are due to the hens fluctuating hormones when she first starts 'menstruatiing' (releasing eggs) Strangely enough I also have turkeys and ducks but haven't seen the same variations in their eggs

[Veggo]

What is a turkey egg like?

[512window]

Turkey eggs are big! I had a friend who worked on a turkey farm and brought back a flat of eggs for a party. I boiled them and made devilled eggs. Lots of double and triple yolkers in there.

[rockandroller1]

We were just wondering this weekend why people don't eat turkey eggs. Are they unsafe? Bad tasting?

[Karl S]

Because it's not profitable to raise a large brood of laying turkeys, as it were. They are wasted, and eat more than chickens....

[greygarious]

When I asked the local poultry farmer why they raise turkeys but never sell turkey eggs, he said most turkeys are slaughtered before they are old enough to start laying. Obviously, some are kept for breeding and their eggs hatch.

[rockandroller1]

Thank you KarlS and greygarious for your answers! I learned my something new today, which I love doing.

[Sarah Perry]

I've been lucky enough to get turkey eggs from the farmer's market and I LOVE them - even to the point of having them raw in smoothies. They have a somewhat different flavor from chicken eggs, and taste to me more like meat than chicken eggs do. If you like things like grass-fed beef and venison, turkey eggs are probably for you.

[justlizikaria]

Turkey eggs are obviously bigger than chicken eggs, they're pointy and often speckled, the taste is almost identical to chicken eggs, depending of course on the feed they're given. Duck eggs on the other hand (although they all eat the same food) have "heavier" tasting eggs, thicker yolks and their whites remain somewhat 'transparent' even after cooking. My kids used to fight over the duck eggs, we all thought they were much tastier, chicken eggs in comparison tasted 'watery.

[John E.]

When I was a kid my older brother used to work part time for a farmer friend that had a commercial hen house. These operations are now mostly automated, but this one, with about 15,000 hens was not. Whenever the young hens came in it took a while for all of them to get on a schedule of laying a normal sized egg. We used to eat a lot of the tiny little eggs. They were the size of quail eggs. I remember my mother and my niece making Easter eggs with them. I recently found an old shoe box with the plastic green grass and there were some of those little Easter eggs (the insides dried up). We used to get a lot of double-yolked eggs too. I only remember one time getting a double-yolk egg from the grocery store. The best way to avoid them is to buy large instead of extra large eggs, although I don't believe the difference is enough to throw off a recipe.

[hetook]

g quest. A good friend from the english countryside says no. but i saypossibly y.

[melpy]

My mother always cracks each egg individually into a ramekin or mug. That way you know beforehand.

[riot grrrl]

My mother does the same thing - she taught me that is has the added bonus of giving you a chance to sniff the egg/check to see if if is rotten before you accidentally ruin the rest of your good ingredients.

[hill food]

and fish out shell bits if you're a clumsy uaf - hey a new word through typo! oaf/waif = uaf

[Rheta]

and drops of blood. Ewww! But it used to happen!

[Isolda]

It happens all the time. I buy local eggs and am frequently fishing out the bits of blood. But the main reason I crack my eggs into a ramekin first is to remove the chalaza, which bothers me for bizarre psychological reasons. Yes, it's weird, and I don't do it when making a recipe that calls for lots of eggs, such as a sponge cake, but if I'm going to be eating the egg by itself, that chalaza has to go.

And I am always thrilled to get a second yolk. That's the best part.

[cookie monster]

Isolda - someone else who shares my chalazaphobia. I'm compelled to remove them, no matter how many eggs I'm using. And yes, I know that I'm eating them all the time when the eggs have been cracked by other non-phobic people, but I can't help it . . .

[EM23]

I guess I am a Chalazaphobic too. Now I can finally put a name to my obsession with getting that thing out of my eggs. Thanks Isolda & Monster.

The yolk is my favorite part so a double yolk is a big treat. It is supposed to be a sign of good luck.

[nofunlatte]

I once got a double-yolked egg in a carton from the farmer's market. The egg had a slight "waist" (indentation). Not sure if that's a clue or simply due to random chance. It was remarkably delicious, but so were the rest in the carton!

[Naguere]

Often at a farmers market you can find people selling ;double yolkers', because they know a thing or two.

for a start the size of the egg is surprisingly larger then a single yolker, or even a quite large egg.

[cantkick]

I have found doubles in jumbo eggs a few times, and in extra large occasionally, I have never found one in a large egg. Since baking recipes call for large eggs, you should be fine.

[JEN10]

When I was in CA, I shopped at Trader Joe's and purchased the Jumbos. I had double yolks all the time. They were BIG eggs!!!

[hetook]

Food Party big?

[paulj]

THere's a restaurant in Chicago, Lou Michells, that has a reputation for serving double yolk eggs. So presumably there's a way of identifying them, perhaps by shining a light through the egg. I've never encountered one, so maybe egg producers are separating them out, and selling them to people who want them.

[mlou72]

Hold it up to your monitor in front of Google. Or shine a light through it in a dark room. Or, you know, crack it open.

http://www.claire-cameron.com/site/20...

[paulj]

Candling eggs images
http://www.google.com/search?q=candle...

[Veggo]

Are you seeking to find more of them or to avoid them?

[ipsedixit]

Avoid.

Sort of messes up baking proportions.

[Veggo]

I estimate that I have had one egg every third day of my life, so 7178 eggs, and I have not yet seen a 2-yolk egg. Are you bracing for the improbable, or reading The Chernoble Times?

[ipsedixit]

Are you saying I should stop cooking with uranium rods?

[hill food]

no, stick with the uranium rods - nothing to turn on or off they just ARE.

if you want to avoid dbl yolk then avoid farmers eggs, brown ones etc. they look a bit larger and a little mis-shaped. I think of it as lagniappe, but can toss one a curve ball when on a schedule.

[sr44]

And I got a dozen at the local farmer's market a while ago that had 3 eggs with 3 yolks, and 1 egg with 2 yolks. I don't think they were particularly large. And all the eggs I've bought since have been the usual sort.

[Cathy]

Crack an egg into a cup then add to your mixing bowl.

I buy eggs at a local egg ranch and see double yolks more often in Spring and Autumn and only occasionally those seasons in between (none at all this summer).

[babette feasts]

The double yolks are generally smaller, so I don't worry about messing up baking proportions, figure if it is more yolk its only a few grams.