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PREPARATION OF FROZEN AND DRIED EGGS. i 
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 
aded 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. Heshould 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 included 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. 8. Department of Agriculture, the 
following facts: 
The majority of the samples of white rets, 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. Asa matter of fact, blood 
