Eggs: How to Tell How Old an Egg Is
Source of Recipe
Delia Smith
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It's the amount of air inside an egg that the cook needs to be concerned with. You can see that the construction of the egg includes a space for the air to collect at the wide end, and it's the amount of air in this space that determines the age and quality of the egg and how best to cook it. In newly laid eggs, the air pocket is hardly there, but as the days or weeks pass, more air gets in and the pocket grows; at the same time, the moisture content of the egg begins to evaporate.
How to tell how old a raw egg is while it is safely tucked away in its shell could seem a bit tricky, but not so. Remember the air pocket? There is a simple test that tells you exactly how much air there is. All you do is place the egg in a tumbler of cold water: if it sinks to a completely horizontal position, it is very fresh; if it tilts up slightly or to a semi-horizontal position, it could be up to a week old; if it floats into a vertical position, then it is stale. The only reason this test would not work is if the egg had a hairline crack, which would allow more air in. That said, 99% of the time, the cook could do this simple test and know precisely how the egg will behave.
In my opinion, all eggs should be used within 2 weeks, if at all possible. An extra week is okay, but 3 weeks is the maximum keeping time.
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