I have questions about double yolk eggs...

[cotedupy]

Look at the state of these eggs. I was so confident that they'd have four yolks between the two of them that I even took a before picture.

How did I know? Well obviously because double yolk eggs always come together, and every other one in the carton had been like that.

What's going on then? It's not like all the eggs have been laid by the same massively over-fertile chicken, they've come from different chickens, just in the same general vicinity of each another. Someone please explain this witchcraft to me...

And because I realise this may not be the place to be asking in-depth stuff about the vagaries of the female reproductive system, here's another bonus question while we're at it: Why are double yolk eggs regarded as a good thing?

Amongst a litany of unforced errors the humble egg, with its perfect 1:1 yolk to white ratio, is beginning to look like one of the crowning achievements of God's Creation. All 'double yolkers' do is f up my cooking. We shouldn't be putting up with this nonsense, whoever's to blame needs to be held to account...

 

[coxhaus]

I or my wife have never seen a double yolk egg.

 

[Jovidah]

Double yolks are awesome for dishes where you want more yolks like carbonara. Surprised no one thought of marketting them specifically for such purposes.

 

[sumis]

when you think about what eggs actually are …

.

 

[gentiscid]

https://www.delish.com/food/a37331602/double-yolk-eggs/

 

[Jovidah]

I or my wife have never seen a double yolk egg.

I don't know how common they are (like the article said they mostly occur amongst young birds and usually in the larger sized eggs), but the impression I get is that they usually mostly get filtered out one way or another in the common mid sized supermarket eggs. All the ones I've seen in my life came from large / xl sized eggs bought directly at a farmer.

 

[MarcelNL]

I have seen them marketed separately but not in supermarkets where whatever eggs the sell typically are machine sorted.

 

[cotedupy]

Double yolks are awesome for dishes where you want more yolks like carbonara.

Now I'd be the first person to applaud this kind of fanciful whimsy in one's approach to mealtimes:

[Cracks egg]
Golly gosh, look darling - a double yoker. Huzzah! I'll start rolling the pasta...


But it's not like that is it, because once there's one you know all the others will be too. So it goes more along the lines of:

[Cracks egg]
Oh bloody hell! It's got two yolks, why don't they put that s*** on the ******* box? 'Fraid it's carbonara for the next week luv...

 

[deltaplex]

I'm going to do a little bit of assuming here, but my guess is that they sort everything by size for these cartons and group them by uniformity. Since (IME) double yolkers tend to be slightly elongated when compared to their standard siblings, that's how you end up with 24 yolks in a carton. At least how eggs get used in my house, double yolks are a pleasant surprise that improve whatever their preparation is.

 

[Naftoor]

my dad gets jumbo eggs from weis as his go to. I’ve noticed when I’m there to at something like 20-30% of each container is a double yolker, haven’t noticed it on smaller egg sizes. I’ll have to try jumbos from other stores to see if it’s a localized issue with specific farms for X or Y company or if it’s just the nature of the beast when dealing with jumbos.

Also have noticed jumbos are oddly shaped, very cloacadynamic for ease of laying I suppose but they remind me of a any number of aircraft or rocket nose cones.

 

[stringer]

I bought a case of extra large eggs from Restaurant Depot a few months ago and every single one (180) was double yolked.

 

[cotedupy]

I bought a case of extra large eggs from Restaurant Depot a few months ago and every single one (180) was double yolked.

You must’ve been fuming... fishing out all those extra yolks for your mise, rushing off to get half a pig’s worth of pancetta for the new pasta special.

I hope you got a credit.

 

[superworrier]

I'm on the "I've only ever seen double yolks in jumbo eggs, and a large percentage of them are" train

 

[birdsfan]

I work in a breakfast/lunch cafe and crack nearly 1500 eggs a week. We buy only cases of X-Large from Restaurant Depot. From my experience, the double yolkers have been pretty rare. I did tend to notice a much higher instance of them right after the last round of avian flu. My coworkers and I joked that the birds had been given some sort of fertility drugs.

 

[MarcelNL]

after avian flu sounds correct, since they are mainly laid by young hens due to higher hormone levels....avian flu means plenty of the older hens being culled and replaced by young hens.

 

[Delat]

I like a high yolk to white ratio and have been unable to decide if double yolks are a good thing or not from that perspective. Intuitively I suspect 2 yolks probably provide less total yolk volume than a single yolk.

I need a mathematician's opinion - @ian?

 

[cotedupy]

Surprised no one thought of marketting them specifically for such purposes.

Or perhaps using them tactically to influence people's eating habits if you're overstocked on something else.


[Supermarket manager after the delivery]

Right then... which one of you bright sparks ordered 500 kilo o' rashers? I said FIFTY! Now we've got half a ****ing ton of pig that goes off a week on Tuesday. Get the double yolkers on the shelves boys, SpagCab's the only thing that'll save your bacon now.

 

[coxhaus]

I'm on the "I've only ever seen double yolks in jumbo eggs, and a large percentage of them are" train

Maybe that explains it as we never buy jumbo eggs. We usually buy large and sometimes extra-large.

 

[MarcelNL]

I like a high yolk to white ratio and have been unable to decide if double yolks are a good thing or not from that perspective. Intuitively I suspect 2 yolks probably provide less total yolk volume than a single yolk.

I need a mathematician's opinion - @ian?

only way to find out is to buy some and weigh the yolks and white, and compare with 'regular'...
A globe has a large volume so I'd guess there is more yolk volume than one would expect.

 

[mengwong]

I’m guessing the egg grader machines involved have a candler attachment (basically a bright light) that image-processes each egg using the usual GPU-powered AI, and the control software bins the double-yolks to their own carton, because what else is the software going to do with them…

https://chickencaravan.com/zenyer-egg-grader-5400-eggs/

 

[sumis]

I’m guessing the egg grader machines involved have a candler attachment (basically a bright light) that image-processes each egg using the usual GPU-powered AI, and the control software bins the double-yolks to their own carton, because what else is the software going to do with them…

https://chickencaravan.com/zenyer-egg-grader-5400-eggs/

any place that benefits from a 5400 eggs/hour grader machine is an evil place.

for home use (3-4 eggs/day average), I see reason not to buy from a farm of my choice, where I know the hens are happy enough, and the where the quality exceeds anything I can get in the supermarket.

double yolks is unpredictably spread out over the cartons i get – which seems to be in line with above comments.

.

 

[MarcelNL]

Buying eggs from a farm directly is only possible/viable when you have a farm selling them near you, I agree with the principle but driving 15Km (one way) to the next farm selling organic free range eggs is not a great option in a country where 90% of farms are bio-industry. Supermarkets do sell organic free range eggs, yet I suspect those are sorted mechanically too as the numbers they sell are simply too high.

 

[Delat]

only way to find out is to buy some and weigh the yolks and white, and compare with 'regular'...
A globe has a large volume so I'd guess there is more yolk volume than one would expect.

But with the maths we can actually start with a spherical yolk!

 

[MarcelNL]

But with the maths we can actually start with a spherical yolk!

sure, and to be honest the language hurdle got me a bit there! globe. sphere....
Still, it makes more sense IMO to compare the yolk to white ratio as eggs vary in overall size and the yolk is far less of a sphere.... so unless someone is going to do some serious modeling of an egg and do some math using pictures of standard eggs and double yolks I guess that cracking a few eggs is faster ;-)

 

[Delat]

sure, and to be honest the language hurdle got me a bit there! globe. sphere....
Still, it makes more sense IMO to compare the yolk to white ratio as eggs avry in overall size and the yolk is far less of a sphere.... so unless someone is going to do some serious modeling of an egg and do some math using pictures of standard eggs and double yolks I guess that cracking a few eggs is faster ;-)

Oh I agree weighing would be the easy way to go! I was just making a joke based on this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

 

[MarcelNL]

I work in an environment where spherical cows are quite common ;-)
Until the real world data come in....and that is my part.

 

[blokey]

Buying eggs from a farm directly is only possible/viable when you have a farm selling them near you, I agree with the principle but driving 15Km (one way) to the next farm selling organic free range eggs is not a great option in a country where 90% of farms are bio-industry. Supermarkets do sell organic free range eggs, yet I suspect those are sorted mechanically too as the numbers they sell are simply too high.

Industrial farming are bad for the animals, but without them egg and egg related products are probably gonna be a luxury for most people. When my mother was young, she only eat eggs on holidays and birthday.

 

[MarcelNL]

Coming from a country where eggs are not a daily staple I'm amazed by how much eggs are considered 'normal consumption' in some countries. And that is coming from a country where we hold approx 43 Million hens for eggs...against a population of 17 Million .

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

 

[M1k3]

@HumbleHomeCook yolking it up. You ruffle my feathers and crack me up.