http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns:css="http://macVmlSchemaUri" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
Frsh-Egg-Test-art - 1/14/17
"'A fresh laid egge' - The Egg Float Test explained,
for period Soapmakers, Cooks and Brewers" by Unnr in elska á Fjárfella.
NOTE: See also the files: The-Egg-Test-art, brewing-msg,
Making-Mead-art, mead-msg, soap-msg, soapmaking-msg, Lye-Soap-art, eggs-msg.
************************************************************************
NOTICE -
This article was added to this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium, with the permission of the author.
These files are available on the Internet at:
http://www.florilegium.org
Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the
author or translator.
While the author will likely give permission for this work
to be reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first or
check for any permissions granted at the end of this file.
Thank you,
Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous
stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************
You can find more work by this author on her blog at:
http://bookeofsecretes.blogspot.com
'A
fresh laid egge' -
The Egg Float
Test explained, for period Soapmakers, Cooks and Brewers
by Unnr in
elska á Fjárfella
Of the
Dominion of Myrkfaelinn in the Kingdom of Aethelmearc
Sometime in the middle of the 16th century someone figured
out that a fresh laid chicken egg has a similar density as certain strengths of
solutions. The egg will float instead of sink as it would in plain water,
indicating a specific strength or density. First mentioned in soap making
manuals to check the strength of lye (1558), it quickly surfaced both in
cooking recipes to check the strength of brine (1597), a solution of salt &
water, and brewing recipes to check the strength of must (1594), a solution of
fruit or honey sugars & water.
Initially the only available references for the egg test in brewing
were from the copious but out of period 1669 cookbook The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digby Knight Opened.
Even though this manuscript came from Digby's lifelong collection of recipes
and was posthumously published several years after his death so could be seen
as probably period, his recipes are much more contemporary to 17th
century recipes than to what is found before. For instance, many recipes
mentioned in Digby use ingredients and techniques not yet found, or commonly
used, in our period of study. The addition of citrus, like lemons, and the use
of raisins, which is common in Digby, is not found in any of the pre 1600
recipes. And the technique of aging in the bottle, often for a sparkling
beverage, is something that does not match with the medieval method of serving
mead young or aging in wooden casks and barrels either. But even though the
recipes themselves may not be period, they do tend to include more information
on the actual process and can serve as a good almost period explanation on
previously unexplained techniques.
It was not until I delved deeper into period mead making that I came
across four late 16th century brewing recipes mentioning the egg
float test, and was finally able to firmly place this technique within our time
of study for all three crafts: soap making, cooking and brewing. This article
explores the underlying process and easy application of this intriguing trick
of science
But doesn't a floating egg mean the egg is spoiled? It depends. The
floating egg technique works by way of the internal design of an egg, which
includes an air sack at the rounded end of the egg for the bird embryo to
breath. A fresh egg has a relatively small air sack but as the egg shell is
slightly porous over time the size of the air sack increases as the contents of
the egg slowly evaporate and dry out. As an old egg will have a large air sack,
when put into water it will bob up and float. This test is still used in our
modern times to test to see if an egg is fit to eat before cracking it and not
be surprised with a sulfur bomb!
Because the size of the air sack changes over time, interfering with
the results of our density test, it is very important to use a fresh egg which
has not yet had time to evaporate. It is also important to check the supposedly
fresh egg as eggs sold in the supermarket are not always as fresh as you might
assume (check the sell by dates or even better, get a local backyard egg). To
do this, before every density test calibrate your egg in plain water to make
sure it sinks flat to the bottom, with both butt and tip level. Use a wide
mouth glass jar and tongs to place the egg on the bottom as it can sink so fast
it cracks in bigger jars.
The density or specific gravity of water is 1. When minerals like salts
or sugars are dissolved into water the extra particles change the density of
the solution by making it more crowded, or dense. A fresh egg has a density
between 1.03-1.1 g/ml which means it would be borne, or float, by a solution of
a density matching or exceeding 1.03-1.1 g/ml. A saturated salt solution, or
brine, has a density of about 1.2 g/ml, a wood ash lye solution for laundry
soap a density of about 1.11 g/ml and a brewing solution would be between
1.06-1.1 g/ml – all fairly close together and why using the egg test works, in
some way or another, for all three.
In modern brewing a hydrometer is used to take a starting (before
fermentation) and finishing (after fermentation) gravity reading. Determining
the difference of sugars between start and end makes it possible to calculate
the percentage of alcohol produced by the yeast from that difference (what is
gone has been consumed by the yeast and thus converted into alcohol). As
medieval brewers were not aware of the micro-biology involved in brewing and
artificially stopping the yeast for a specific alcohol content was not
understood (how they wished to know what caused the summer 'boiling' and
consequent explosions of wine!), all the brewer needed to know was if there was
the right amount of sugar for proper fermentation.
Most recipes ask for so many pounds of honey to so much water, why
should you go through the trouble of checking the density to make must? For two
reasons, the first being that not all honey is created equal. A thick syrupy
honey created in a dry year will have more sugar per liquid volume than a thin,
runny honey. Both will make mead, but if you measured a thin honey to make
sweet mead you might be unpleasantly surprised at the dry white wine-like mead
you ended up with... Secondly, in period all honey would have been used for
brewing, not just the easy to extract. The centrifuge type honey extruder is a
modern convenience and allows for high yield with minimal processing. In period
honey would be extracted by hand, first by breaking up the combs to leak out as
much as they could, and then by washing the broken up combs in warm water to
dissolve the remaining and any crystallized honey. This honey/water mixture
would be of unknown strength and would have to be checked before brewing, as
not enough fermentable sugars could result in an easily spoiled brew and too
much sugar can inhibit yeast growth, stalling fermentation and giving
competitors a change. I don't doubt master brewers of the time could eyeball or
taste and have a perfect brew each time, but for the less initiated household
brewer (and modern re-enactor) it is nice to be able to check with a visual
aide, as the Digby recipe Mr. Pierce's
Excellent White Metheglin confirms:
"When it is blood-warm,
put the honey to it, about one part, to four of water; but because this doth
not determine the proportions exactly (for some honey will make it stronger
then other) you must do that by bearing up an Egge."
Would any kind of
fresh egg work? Not until the Digby recipe Mr.
Corsellises Antwerp Meath did a recipe specify that the egg should be a
hen's egg "as above, an Hens Egge
may swim with the point upwards". Even so, with differences in breed,
health, age and diet the egg size & shape can differ as well. For the best
results, Digby's Mr. Pierce's recipe
advises to test several eggs and pick out the most average one, both in
freshness and shape
"… and put a good number,
(ten or twelve) New-laid-eggs into it, and as round ones as may be; For long
ones will deceive you in the swiming; and stale ones, being lighter then new,
will emerge out of the Liquor, the breadth of a sixpence, when new ones will
not a groats-breadth. Therefore you take many, that you make a medium of their
several emergings; unless you be certain, that they which you use, are
immediately then laid and very round."
But what does "beare an egge" mean? How does that
look like? It depends on the density you're looking for and the solution you
are playing with. For instance, in soap making two densities are used; a strong
one to make laundry soap and a weaker one to make body soap. While in the
laundry soap recipe the egg is floating horizontally at the surface (with about
the size of a quarter above the surface), as the The seconde part of the Secretes of Master Alexis of Piemont of
1560 puts "the Egge into it, and
whiles the egge remaineth aboue"; the body soap recipe for shampoo
uses "stronge lye that will beare an
egge swimminge betwene two waters", or, the egg is suspended in the
middle.
Soapmaking lye looks like: laundry
strength lye, and shampoo strength lye.
This shampoo recipe is the earliest sample I've found of the egg float
density test and is part of the 1558 manuscript The secretes of the
reuerende Maister Alexis of Piemount Containyng excellent remedies against
diuers disease by Girolamo Ruscelli.
"A very exquisite soap, made of
diverse things.
Take aluminis catini (burnt
cream of tartar), quicklime one part, strong lye that will suspend and egg in
the middle, three pottels, a pot of common oil; mix all well together, put into
it the white of an egg well beaten (dispersant), and a dishful of wheat flour
(thickener), and an ounce of roman vitriol (cupric sulfate), or red lead (lead
oxide pigment) well beaten into powder, an mix continuously for the space of
three hours, then let it rest, by the space of a day, and it will be right and
perfect. Finally, take it out, and cut it in pieces: afterwards set it to dry
two days, in the wind, but not in the sun. Always use this soap, when you want
to wash your hair, for it is very wholesome, and makes fair hair." (Translated by Susan Verberg)
As the density of a
saturated salt solution is fairly strong, the egg in a salt solution would also
float horizontally at the surface, similar to laundry soap strength lye. The
recipe in the 1597 cookbook The second part of the good hus-wiues iewell by
Thomas Dawson uses this technique to make sure the brine is saturated and is
the earliest mention I've found of the egg float test in a cookbook.
Apparently, it is also used for numerous pickling recipes of the new world
colonies but I have not found any period mentions of that as of yet.
"To keepe lard in season.
Cut your lard in faire peeces, and salt it well with white salte, euery
péece with your hand, and lay it in a close vessel then take faire running
water, and much white salt in it, to make it brine, the~ boile it vntill it
beare an Egge, then put it into your Lard and keepe it close."
Like with soap, brewing with different sugar strengths makes for different
types of brews. The stronger the mead the longer it can keep, as Digby's To Make Metheglin advises: "If you would have it to drink within two or
three months, let it be no stronger then to bear an Egg to the top of the
water. If you would have it keep six months, or longer, before you drink it,
let it bear up the Egg the breadth of two pence above the water. This is the
surer way to proportion your honey then by measure." Medieval meads
are usually fermented using ale yeast, which generally dies off once the
alcohol level reaches about 10%. As an alcohol level of about 10-12% will kill
off most contaminants responsible for spoiling meads and fruit wines, a higher
starting sugar level resulting in a higher alcohol percentage would therefore
allow the mead to keep longer. Unlike the soap & brine recipes, the brewing
egg does not float horizontal but vertical, as Digby's Mr. Corsellises Antwerp Meath mentions "so strong that an Egge may swim in it with the end upwards",
indicating an intermediate strength between suspended and floating.
Both the soap making recipes and the brine recipes indicate to boil
first, then measure – the brewing recipes are not so certain and often
recommend to test the strength before boiling, as Digby's To Make Metheglin shows: "And
the time of the tryal of the strength is, when you incorporate the honey and
water together, before the boiling of it." apparently not realizing
boiling evaporates water thereby changing the density. The recipes can also not
quite make up their mind if the must should be cold, blood warm or boiling,
which could indicate they did not understand how temperature affects specific
gravity either, as shown in the 1597 Dutch beekeeping manual "Van de Byen" by Theodorus Clutius;
"and let it cook / until an Egg can
float in the liquid / then set it off the fire", which could also
resulted in a nicely boiled egg if the egg is not removed... As medieval
recipes over many disciplines have a tendency to be brief to the point of
missing pertinent information, it is entirely possible the period brewer knew
to remove the egg and cool down the must, but did not bother to note that down.
The 1616 Danish cookbook Koge Bog advises to "put an egg or two into this lukewarm brew so that there is a part of
egg as big as a 2 shilling over the water then it is sweet and fat enough"
which probably is the most accurate measurement
.
http://bestiary.ca | 15-Jan-2011 11:27:12
"
v:shapes="_x0000_i1028">
Bees coming out of a hive to
drive off an intruder.
Following are two 16th century recipes which specifically
mention using the egg float test:
Jewell House of Art and Nature by Hugh Platt, 1594.
76 A
receipt for the making of an artificiall Malmesey.
Take four gallons of conduit
water, into the which put one gallon of good English honie, stirre the honie
well till it be dissolved in the water, set this water in a copper pan upon a
gentle fire, & as there ariseth any skumme take it off with a goose wing or
a Skimmer, and when it hath simpered about an hour, then put in a new laid egge
into the water, which will sinke presentlie, then continue your first fire
without any great encrease, and also your skimming so long as any skim doth
arise, and when this egge beginneth to floate aloft and sinketh no more, then
put in another new laide egge, which wil sinke likewise, & when that second
egge doth also swim aloft with the fyrst egge, let the water continue on the
fyre a Paternoster while, then take it off, and beeing colde, put the same into
some roundelet, fylling the roundelet brimful. And in the middest of this
roudelet hand a bagge, wherein first put some reasonable weight or peize, and
to everie eight gallons of liquor two nutmegges groselie beaten, twentie
Cloves, a rase or two of Ginger, and a sticke of Cynamon of a fynger length. Set
your roundelet in the sunne, in some hot Leades or other place, where the sunne
shineth continuallie for three whole monethes, covering the bung-hole from the
raine, and now and then fylling it uppe with more of the same composition as it
wasteth. This I learned of an English traveyler, who advised me to make the
same alwaies about the middest of Maie, that it might have 3. hot moneths
togither to work it to his ful perfection. […]
"Van de Byen" (Of
the Bees) by Theodorus Clutius, 1597
To
make mead.
One shall take the rest that
stayed in the basket / from the dripping of the raw honey or zeem / and wash it
with hot water / so that all the sweetness goes into the water / until you have
a tub full or two / or as much as you want: Then put this liquid in the kettle / and let it cook / until
an Egg can float in the liquid / then set it off the fire / and pour it into
the barrels and let it cool / add some yeast of beer / and set it to rise and
work / and althus filling the barrel / so the filthiness may overflow / and
when it does not bubble or work / so shall one close up the barrel / and let it
rest. This is the way to make mead / some put in a piece of tied cloth some
cinnamon / ginger / nutmeg / cloves and similar spices / to give the mead a
good taste and scent. (Translated by Susan Verberg)
Between the end of
the 16th century and the publishing of Digby's cookbook a number of
mead recipes are found to use a similar egg float technique as described in
Digby, but with old-fashioned ingredients and techniques. This is an
interesting time of transition, as by the 16th century not only
could the average person read, due to cheaper & more extensive trade
unusual ingredients like spices, sugar, citrus, chemicals & pigments became
available to the common man. It was a time of great exploration, both of the
sea and in the mind, not in the least helped by the success of the numerous
Books of Secrets, each claiming to expose trade secrets never seen before,
which greatly helped to spread knowledge before only accessible to the educated
elite. This period of transition shows in the difference between Digby's work
and our time of interest, both in ingredients used and in their often elaborate
and detailed explanations.
Numerous recipes in Digby mention the use of coins, like the groat
& two pence (most with an average diameter of about 20mm) as a size
measurement of the bit of shell sticking above the water surface. This type of
measurement seems to become fairly universal in later times as observed in many
of the Digby recipes and later in the US Colonial soap making lye measurements
which often also specify an area the size of a coin, in this case a quarter.
Even though coins are mentioned in the barely out of period 1604 Complete Receipt Books of Ladie Elynor Fettiplace
"so strong of honie that it will
cover an egg to the breadth of two pence", and the 1609 The Feminine Monarchie "make it to bear an egge the breath of a
groat", the period recipes do not specify how the egg should float,
only that is should.
So after all this,
where do you start? With a fresh egg no more than two days old, of the roundest
kind, weighing less than or about 2 ounces. Making a brine solution is easiest:
add enough salt until it stops dissolving, which means a saturated solution is
reached, place the egg, and slowly add water until it floats just as the recipe
likes it. To test lye for soap making the egg would be used after the heated
evaporated lye is cooled down, which allows for contaminant minerals to settle
out of solution and thus not interfere with the remaining solution's density
(for more information on leaching lye and making soft soap see the
Bibliography). For brewing, make your honey must first, heat and evaporate as
needed, let cool down to blood temperature, and add an egg. If the egg sinks
the must is too weak, if it floats close to tipping or tips, the must is too
strong. As the 1609 beekeeping manual The
Feminine Monarchie instructs:
"If the liquor be not strong
enough to beare an egge the breath of a two-pēce above it, thē put so much of
your course hony into it, as wil give it that strength: or rather, when it is
so strong powre in more water (stirring it with the liquor) until the egge
sinke."
In other words; if
it is too weak, add more honey, stir well to make sure the sugars are
completely dissolved, and try again. If too strong, add some water, stir well,
and try again. As you can imagine, it is easier to start with too strong a
solution and dilute it, than to start with a weak solution and try to
incrementally dissolve more sugars into it.
The table below
matches egg position with specific gravity, giving us an idea of what to aim
for. Egg readings are given for both 10% tolerance yeast (ale yeast) and 12%
tolerance yeast. (from The Egg Test)
mead |
start SG |
egg |
Start SG |
egg |
style |
10% yeast |
reading |
12% yeast |
reading |
dry mead |
1.085 |
touches |
1.1 |
20mm |
Medium |
1.095 |
18mm |
1.11 |
26mm |
Sweet |
1.1 |
20mm |
1.12 |
30mm |
Dessert |
1.1 + |
> 20mm |
1.2 + |
30mm + |
To make sure there
is enough sugar for the yeast to feed on, the egg should float. But if it
starts to tip over and not reliably float point up anymore, the solution has
become too strong with too much honey sugar for the yeast to properly work and
fermentation will likely stall. The average range of 1.08 to 1.12 g/ml at which
the average, round fresh laid egg floats point up is also the ideal range of
sugar content for starting a successful mead. And now that you have everything
you need to make a successful solution using medieval techniques, whether it be
for soapmaking, cooking or brewing, and are able to properly document it, let
the experiments begin!
I would like to
express my thanks to Mistress Roheisa le Sarjent from Lochac for her article The Egg Test for Period Brewers and Mead
Makers. It proved a great starting point as we're working from similar
sources, and I'm grateful to find the heavy lifting of figuring out egg
readings already done. Tak! [In the
Florilegium as: The-Egg-Test-art -Stefan]
"Dryckeslag, Nordisk
familjebok" from Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus or
History of the Northern People,
by Olaus Magnus, printed in Rome 1555.
REFERENCES
Digby, Kenelme. The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir
Kenelme Digby Knight Opened, 1669
The Project
Gutenberg EBook of The Closet of Sir
Kenelm Digby Knight Opened. Anne MacDonell (ed.), 2005
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16441
Sibly,
Belinda. The Egg Test for Period Brewers and Mead
Makers, 2004
Mistress Roheisa le
Sarjent, Cockatrice, May AS 49, p.20-29.
http://brewers.lochac.sca.org/files/2014/02/The-Egg-test-for-Period-Brewers2.pdf
Butler, Charles. The Feminine Monarchie. Oxford: 1609.
https://books.google.com/books?id=f5tbAAAAMAAJ&dq=the+feminine+monarchie+butler&source=gbs_navlinks_s
(1623). Transcription by Susan Verberg.
Density values from
http://homesteadlaboratory.blogspot.com/2014/02/historical-lye-making-part-2.html
Platt, Hugh. Jewell House of Art and Nature. 1594.
London: Peter Short.
http://eebo.chadwyck.com/ Transcription by Susan Verberg
Anonymous, Koge Bog: Indeholdendis et hundrede
fornødene stycker etc. Kiøbenhaffn (Copenhagen): Aff Salomone Sartorio,
1616. http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/cooking/1616.html
Krupp, Christina M.
& Gillen, Bill. Making Medieval Mead,
or Mead Before Digby. The Compleat Anachronist #120. Milpitas: SCA Inc,
2003. (includes the Complete Receipt
Books of Ladie Elynor Fettiplace, 1604).
Ruscelli, Girolamo. The secretes of the reuerende Maister Alexis of Piemount. London:
John Kingstone, 1558.
Ruscelli, Girolamo. The seconde part of the Secretes of Master Alexis of Piemont.
London: John Kyndon, 1560.
Dawson, Thomas. The second part of the good hus-wiues iewell,
London: E. Allde for Edward, 1597.
Clutium, Theodorum Van de Byen. Leyden: Jan Claesz van
Dorp, Inde Vergulde Son, 1597.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0NnAAAAcAAJ&dq=van+de+byen&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Transcription by
Susan Verberg.
More information on
leaching soapmaking lye:
https://www.academia.edu/27755101/Of_Potash_and_Lye
More information on
making medieval soft soap:
https://www.academia.edu/27757652/To_Make_Black_Sope
More information on
brewing with honey: Of Hony, a Collection
of Medieval Brewing Recipes.
WEBSITE forthcoming…
To find a groat, and
other period coins: http://alphaofficium.weebly.com/apps/search?q=groat
Image of fresh egg
test from http://media.finedictionary.com/pictures/243/38/9971.jpg
Photographs of soap
making lye by Susan Verberg, 2016.
Bees coming out of a
hive to drive off an intruder.
Museum Meermanno, MMW, 10 B 25, Folio 37r -
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastgallery260.htm#
"Dryckeslag, Nordisk familjebok" from Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, by Olaus Magnus, Rome,
1555.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Historia_de_gentibus_septentrionalibus
------
Copyright 2017 by Susan Verberg. <susanverberg at gmail.com>.
Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided
the author is credited. Addresses
change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is
notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.
If this article is reprinted in a publication, please
place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the
Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track
which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.
<the end>