I do like a nice soft boiled egg with soldiers. Known as a 'dippy' egg
around here.

Someone bought me a Lakeland egg boiler as a biffday pressie
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/lakeland-e.../product/12922

The video demo explains how it works, but.

Interesting idea. Consists of a water tray with heater at the bottom, a
rack to hold up to 7 eggs and a cover with a small (6mm?) hole in the top.

Idea is that a 'specified' amount of water is placed in the water tray, the
egg(s) placed in the rack, the lid put on & the heater switched on. When
all the water in the tray has boiled away a signal sounds and the egg(s) are
ready.

Heater output is fixed, the variable is the amount of water that goes into
the tray. So far, so good.

A small measuring beaker is supplied with 3 scales etched into the sides for
hard, medium & soft boiled eggs. Each of these scales is subdivided 1-7 for
the number of eggs to be boiled.

The 'hard' scale is higher up the side of the beaker than the 'medium'
scale, which is higher up than the 'soft' scale.

Makes sense. The more water used, the longer it takes to boil away, the
more the egg is cooked. Logical Captain.

What I can't work out is the 1-7 scales. In each case the 1 egg mark is
higher up than the 7 egg scale, so it indicates that 1 egg requires more
water to cook than 7 eggs would?

I'm confused by this, its counter intuitive. Surely 7 eggs take more heat
to cook than 1 egg?

E-mailed Lakeland and they confirm the scales are running the right way.

Can anyone explain the science behind this?


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk