russ_watters said:
The flame height has no effect on how long it takes to boil an egg.
Sure it does. More gas means more heat, which boils the water faster. The trick is to keep the inner dark blue cone of the flame within the area of the receptacle. That's the hottest part.
The absolute perfect egg is made thusly: (This is based upon 3 large eggs, which is all that my little pot will hold.)
Add salt to the eggs.
Run the tap until the water coming out is as hot as possible.
Fill pot with hot water until the eggs are covered by a cm or so of water.
Put burner on as high as it takes to put the inner blue cone just inside the perimeter of the pot bottom. On my stove that was full throttle.
When the water starts to boil, back the flame down the the lowest level to maintain a simmer, put a lid on the pot, and start countdown.
Precisely 7 1/2 minutes later, remove from stove and quench the eggs with cold tap water.
Now that I'm living with W, we have an electric stove. I hate those things. Now I just nuke my eggs for 1 minute (2 eggs; she has me on a diet). They come out just about the same.
edit: I just realized that I missed one hell of a lot of this thread between the time that I started posting and the time that I sent my drunk niece packing so that I could finish.