Comments on: How do factories deal with eggs?

Question: How do factories deal with eggs?

BuddhaInABucket — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:48:59 -0800

How do factories that make processed foods deal with eggs?

I can't think of any way a machine would be able to open up an egg and get the insides out without getting shell everywhere, but there must be a way. Google-fu is failing me. Pics/video of an egg machine operating would be swell!

By: monospace

monospace — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:56:29 -0800

I used to work in a cookie factory when I was a teen. We used egg mixture from giant buckets. Which of course begs the question how those buckets were filled in the first place.

By: bcwinters

bcwinters — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:56:40 -0800

With something like the CENTRA-MATIC III & EGG VALET?

I Googled egg cracking machine.

By: Perplexity

Perplexity — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:00:05 -0800

An egg cracking machine is sold here. There seems to be a video, but you have to fill out a form to view it. I didn't try.

Unrelated short text.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:00:29 -0800

Couldn't you just smash a bunch of eggs, put 'em on a cheesecloth, and wait for the liquid to drip through?

By: Leon

Leon — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:01:03 -0800

Powdered egg and powdered food dye. (Pancake factory for me).

By: jedicus

jedicus — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:10:15 -0800

The Centra-Matic III is kid stuff. Check out the Lippl Special Machines Engineering egg cracker. It can handle 60,000 eggs per hour!

Also, check out this prior AskMeFi thread about egg separating machines.

By: jedicus

jedicus — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:17:50 -0800

Following that AskMeFi thread lead me to the Diamond Automations 400S, which is capable of handling 40 eggs per second.

Also, there's this YouTube video of a segment from How It's Made that covers the whole process of modern egg production (mostly grading, sorting, and packaging but it has some neat machines nonetheless).

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:13:06 -0800

They either buy a commercial egg cracker/separator or they just buy pre-processed (cracked, separated) eggs in buckets.

By: jaimystery

jaimystery — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:21:43 -0800

Adding to what beerbajay wrote:

Before plastic, welded metal pails were stored inwhole & separated eggs were stored in welded metal pails. The pail was similar to one of today's popcorn tins (in size) but the metal was a heavier gauge. The same can is/was also used for lard.

A majority of users have switched over to plastic but there are still a few small companies who buy the metal pail. These days the pails are almost exactly like the large size popcorn tins you see in stores - except with a welded side seam.

The lard/egg pail used to be one of the more popular metal products made by can companies but now there are only a handful of plants that manufacture it.

Probably too much information for the original question, right?

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:17:41 -0800

Short clip of an industrial egg cracker. Super-awesome. Thanks for making me go look for this.