The vinegar part has always bugged me. Hard boiled eggs have a pungent enough aroma on their own; why do we need to add another acrid smell to the dying process?
It’s not just to keep the kids dunking instead of drinking, it turns out. Most food dyes are acid dyes, so called because they only work in acidic conditions. The vinegar—a solution of 5 percent acetic acid in water—is there to bring the pH low enough that the dye will actually bind. But is there an ideal pH for perfect egg-dying saturation? A normal box of food dye says to add 1 teaspoon of vinegar for every half-cup of water—but would tweaking that acidity by adding more or less vinegar get you better results? WIRED decided to find out.
First, some explanation: Why does acid make the dyes dye better? The colored molecules themselves are sodium salts of a phenolic acid. Once those dyes get thrown into water, the sodium ions fall off, leaving behind the negatively-charged part of the molecule.
Source Article from https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/173811-2015-04-04-the-science-behind-a-perfectly-dyed-easter-egg.htm?EdNo=001&From=RSS
The Science Behind a Perfectly Dyed Easter Egg
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