# Industrial Egg Separation



## cian_12 (Apr 8, 2008)

I'm currently doing an assignment which requires me to separate eggs without getting any shell contamination, obviously, on an industrial scale in a new and innovative way. I've been thinking about different methods that I could use but currently don't have too many ideas. So far they consist of scientific methods which involve weakening the egg shell before cracking it and then using some sort of centrifuge or perhaps a sieve like device (like using one's hands) to separate the yolk and the white. I am also going to carry out physical testing to find out if this is successful.

I may be asking in completely the wrong place but thought I'd give this a shot as all of the chefs on this site are bound to have some good ideas.

If you can provide any help or suggestions on new ideas or even input on my current train of thought I'd be very grateful

Thanks


----------



## mcnerd (Apr 8, 2008)

You can crack an egg more efficiently by doing so on a FLAT surface rather than a sharp edge.  Eggs are cracked into a separate bowl first so "if" there is a shell contamination it will not be buried in all the other ingredients and impossible to see/find.  Use a piece of shell to "retrieve" a fragment.  It almost acts like a magnet.

Those hints might help you in your design concept.


----------



## sparrowgrass (Apr 9, 2008)

I don't know, but I hope you send your results on to McDonalds.  I used to love an egg Mcmuffin for breakfast, but the incidence of crunchy egg shell bits has scared me off.


----------



## Carlos75 (Apr 11, 2008)

Have to agree with mcnerd, using a flat surface is much better as it produces a single crack and is then easy to pull apart with no pieces of shell coming loose, cracking an egg on the rim of bowl or other sharp surface causes the egg shell to fracture.

I wouldn't over complicate things with advanced scientific techniques I would keep it simple - perfect a method to produce a single crack and method to pull the two halves apart.

Good luck!


----------



## johnoenator42 (Apr 14, 2008)

Is this for an ENGR 101 assignment?


----------



## auntdot (Apr 14, 2008)

John, of course this is for an assignment. We get a lot of questions on this forum like this. 

Clearly the problem has been solved by someone, I think they call the product Egg Beaters.

What I would do is go out and buy a dozen eggs, or maybe two.  And then separate them by hand.

In doing so you will learn about the delicacy of the membranes separating the yolk from the white, and get an idea about what the problem of separating them is.

Along the way you can make some great omelets.

But you cannot find an answer to a problem if you do not understand the question.

Sorry.


----------



## buckytom (Apr 14, 2008)

a fine, high speed drill and a centifuge type dealio might work. but you'd need to bring the egg to room temp first, as well as scramble the contents (microsonically, maybe?). scramble, drill the narrow end, then spin out the egg.

just a thought.


----------



## jasonr (May 4, 2008)

> Clearly the problem has been solved by someone, I think they call the product Egg Beaters.



Not perfectly. I can't speak for that specific brand (the one I am familiar with is NatureEgg), but the liquid egg whites I have purchased in little 250 ml cartons will often times fail to whip. 

The only explanation I can think of is that many of the cartons are contaminated, probably with yolk residue. I never have this problem when I just separate the eggs by hand in impeccably clean bowls.


----------



## The Healesville Cook (Jun 4, 2008)

*Egg separation.*

Hi Cian 12. 
How's your egg separation project going?  I'm on the same quest - we make icecream and meringues. The best I've found is the "Egg separator pro" (available at pastrychef.com). You may have seen it already. There's a bit of a discussion happening here about it too. It's very expensive so I'm not sure if it's worth it.  Although we have to separate a lot of eggs so it probably is.  The good thing is it seems like an easy design to copy and fabricate yourself.  Please keep me informed if you can come up with a practical solution for separating lots of eggs.
Many Thanks.
Regards, Scarlet


----------



## bowlingshirt (Jun 4, 2008)

Never tried this, but I wonder if it's possible to freeze the egg, crack the shell and brush/blow off the shell bits.  Then thaw the egg and separate the white from yolk.


----------



## archiduc (Jun 9, 2008)

cian_12 said:


> I'm currently doing an assignment which requires me to separate eggs without getting any shell contamination, obviously, on an industrial scale in a new and innovative way. I've been thinking about different methods that I could use but currently don't have too many ideas. So far they consist of scientific methods which involve weakening the egg shell before cracking it and then using some sort of centrifuge or perhaps a sieve like device (like using one's hands) to separate the yolk and the white. I am also going to carry out physical testing to find out if this is successful.
> 
> I may be asking in completely the wrong place but thought I'd give this a shot as all of the chefs on this site are bound to have some good ideas.
> 
> ...


 
I went white at the thought of this until I realised that the yolk was on me, now I`m about to go back into my shell.


----------



## Constance (Jun 11, 2008)

Our daughter works in a factory that provides egg products to various companies. They actually send out tanker trucks full of egg whites, egg yolks, or sometimes a mix. 
She works in the office, but knows how it all works. I'll ask her about it.


----------



## Jeff G. (Jun 11, 2008)

If you think about hand separating.. You need a cracking stage.  A sharp blade coming across the  bottom of the egg to remove it cleanly with an air nozzle to blow the piece of egg away. After the puff of air to blow away the shell, an angled set of rods, say 1/8" between them for the contents of the egg to drop down onto.  The whites drip through as the egg slides down along the rods.  The yolk drops into a yolk catch bowl at the end. 

After that, you can run the whites through a sieve to be sure there are no shells.  The yolks, if they have to remain whole can not be sieved.  If they can be broken, then you could sieve the yolks too.


----------

