PREPARATION OP FROZEN AND DRIED EGGS. 7 



In order to give farmers, hucksters, grocers, etc., an inducement to improve the 

 quality of the eggs they sell, and in order to put the buying of eggs on the same basis 

 as the buying of other commodities, all the cooperating houses after June 1 purchased 

 all of their eggs on a quality basis. 



Instructions in the cooperating houses were to the effect that only eggs with whole 

 yolks, excluding "blood rings" and those having blood clots or mold, should be 

 graded by the candle as fit for food purposes. In the spring, but more especially later 

 in the season, it was observed that the grading of eggs by the candle as ordinarily 

 practiced was far from accurate. Bad eggs were passed as good eggs, and vice 

 versa. The correction of these errors to save food eggs and to prevent objectionable 

 eggs going to the breaking room and there contaminating and spoiling good eggs was 

 of sufficient importance to warrant careful consideration by both the industry and 

 the investigators. The detailed results of this investigation will be presented in 

 another publication. The practical application of the findings may be summarized 

 as follows: 



The keynote of accurate grading is a knowledge of the quality of eggs and good 

 management. First, there must be a foreman in each candling room who is not only 

 an expert candler but also a good executive. Second, each case or pail of eggs should 

 be tagged with the number of the individual candler that he may have a sense of 

 responsibility and that the accuracy of his candling may be determined. Third, 

 the candlers should be instructed to place all eggs difficult to grade with the rejects 

 or in a container by themselves in order to reduce the number of bad eggs going to 

 the breaking room. Fourth, the foreman of the breaking room should be on the alert 

 to detect bad eggs which are present in breaking stock due to errors in candling and 

 to report the same to the candling room. Fifth, all doubtful eggs should be recandled 

 by an expert to recover those which are good. E and F houses operated their can- 

 dling room according to this system with excellent results. 



GRADING IN THE BREAKING ROOM. 



If good organization was important in the candling room, it was even more so in the 

 breaking room; here the product (good eggs being furnished) gained or lost in quality, 

 depending upon the mode of handling. Here, also, the cost of preparation increased 

 or decreased 'with the efficiency of the working force. First in importance was the 

 foreman, for upon him should rest the responsibility of the work of the breaking force 

 and the condition of the ultimate product. He should be able to command the respect 

 of his subordinates, be conversant with the fundamental principles of bacterial clean- 

 liness, and be familiar with the different types of eggs occurring in breaking stock. 



Owing to the decided changes made in equipment and methods, the routine work in 

 the breaking room in 1912 was quite different from that of 1911. The duties of the 

 foreman the second season in eluded the enforcement of the following: Clean manipu- 

 lation of the egg during breaking, the proper method of grading, the changing of 

 apparatus and the cleaning of hands after breaking a bad egg, the correct speed for 

 breaking, the thorough washing and sterilization of utensils, and the maintenance of 

 discipline in the breaking force. 



Since the presence of one infected egg would contribute myriads of bacteria to the 

 liquid product, the study of the grading of eggs out of the shell became a very im- 

 portant part of the work. As has been stated, the candling of eggs is a very efficient 

 means of eliminating bad eggs from breaking stock, but it is by no means accurate. 

 It is also generally understood by those familiar with eggs before the candle and out 

 of the shell that there are some types of objectionable eggs, such as musty or sour eggs, 

 which can only be detected when broken. The laboratory findings on composite 

 samples of eggs graded to definite types and broken under clean commercial condi- 

 tions showed, as given in Bulletin 51 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, the 

 following facts: 



The majority of the samples of white rots, eggs with yolk lightly adherent to the 

 shell, and all of the samples of sour eggs, black rots, eggs with green albumens, eggs 

 with yolk heavily adherent to the shell, and all other eggs with bad odors, were 

 infested with bacteria. B. coli were present in most of these eggs and constituted the 

 predominating organism in sour eggs. 



The eggs with yolk lightly adherent to the shell were slightly lower in quality than 

 the regular breaking stock eggs, whereas the sour eggs, white rots, eggs with green 

 whites, and eggs with yolk heavily adherent to the shell showed considerably more 

 deterioration. Eggs with bloody whites, or eggs with blood rings, should not be used. 

 The cause of the musty egg, the odor of which increases on heating, thereby creating 

 disaster in the bakery, has not been determined. 



The candler aimed to eliminate all of these types of egg from breaking stock 

 except sour and musty eggs and eggs with green whites. As a matter of fact, blood 



