A perfect hard-boiled egg is solid through and through - with a yolk a uniform light yellow color. If you overcook, the yolk will begin to green. Undercook, and you get liquid (good for breakfast, but not for pickling).
If you've researched the topic of how to boil eggs, there's a wide variance. Whether or not to add salt... Add the eggs before the water is warm or add eggs to boiling. Boil the eggs or remove from heat... Poke the eggs or not... I'll tell you what I have found to work for me - but I'm still experimenting.
Keep in mind that I'm in the Atlanta area. Higher or lower elevations will have variances. I'm using an electric stove, so gas may have some differences as well. I'm also using large white eggs - different sizes will obviously need some tweaking. I don't expect organic and/or brown eggs to make much of a difference, but I may try one day (maybe brown eggs peel easier?)
One thing most posts /do/ agree on is, older eggs are better for boiling. Well, they're actually better for peeling. As eggs age, they will develop an air pocket in them. The air pocket will allow air to surround the egg white and the egg shell membrane as the water is boiling - thus peeling quite easily.
How old? Well, that's another conflicting issue. And complicated by poultry practices - a single pack of eggs may have eggs from multiple days. The sell by date can be no later than 30 days after the oldest egg in the package - but that doesn't mean eggs on the sell by date are 30 days old! There is one consensus, though - by the time the eggs get to the store they are already several days old.
How do you tell? Easy! Place them in water. A fresh egg will sit on its side on the bottom of your bowl. As the egg ages and t develops an air pocket, the more broad egg will start to rise and the pointed portion will fall to the bottom. This rise isn't great - around 30-45 degrees is what I'm looking for. The egg should always be touching the bottom - if it is completely floating or at a near upright position, your egg is /really/ old and should be discarded.
Ok, so now that we got our eggs, here's how to boil them... They will need to be placed in a single layer in a pot. I use a spaghetti pot, and this holds about 15 eggs. These will be covered with water that covers the eggs by an inch (I used distilled water because my municipal water is horrible, but the quality of the water is not a big deal). The water is room temp.
I usually put a couple cups of water in the pan, put the pan on the stove (still off), put the eggs in carefully, then top off the eggs so the water covers the egg by an inch or so. The burner is then started on high, and the pot is left uncovered.
Bring the water to a rapid boil. As soon as a rapid boil is reached, cover the pan with a solid cover (in my spaghetti pot, I wrap the cover in foil because it has strainer holes) and remove from heat (I put it on a cold burner). For eggs that started out from the fridge, time for approximately 21-22 minutes. For eggs at room temperature, about 18 minutes. If you use a pan with more thermal mass, these temperatures may need to be lowered.
I DO NOT add anything to the water (actually, by using distilled, you can argue I /remove/ stuff from it). Some sources say to add salt to make peeling easier, but others have written that this doesn't help and that it will cause the yolk to discolor.
As soon as the time is up, the eggs need to be chilled rapidly. This will stop the cooking so the yolk doesn't discolor, and will also shrink the egg so it will peel easier. Immersion in ice water is what I do. I take a large mixing bowl, put a layer of ice cubes in the bottom, and a bit of water. Using a spaghetti fork (whatever it's called), I remove the eggs and place them on the ice - one at a time, quickly but carefully. Once all the eggs are out, I cover the entire bowl with ice so it's heaping, then fill the bowl with tap water. If I had multiple layers of eggs, I would separate each layer with more ice and water.
After about 15 minutes of cooling, I start to peel. The secret is to break the shell in many small pieces without breaking the white. One article suggested using your boiling pan with a couple inches of cold water, placing the eggs in it, and shaking it back and fourth for a bit. I sound this to be OK, but it takes a bit of practice to get the amount of vigor correct. I also try a crack-and-massage, but found the amount of pressure difficult to control.
Once you're all cracked up, begin to peel. Under running water, pull apart at the broad end of the egg and work down. I can sometimes catch the membrane and get the shell of nearly in one piece. Most of the time, it's a bunch of small peices. Be careful not to pull the white off where the membrane may be stuck (this happens a lot on fresher eggs). If this happens, I will typically keep the egg - as long as no yolk is exposed.
I'm still experimenting a bit with times/temperatures/techniques, but this is working so far. My problem seems to be impatience - I don't wait for my eggs to age ;). I plan to pick up a heavier pan to test out - and will expect my "settle" time to be reduced by a couple minutes. I /might/ try to add a small amount (say, 1/4 tsp) vinegar to my pre-boil water to see if that affects peeling or taste. And, well, I'll play it by ear ;).
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