Posted on 07/28/2022 1:04:02 PM PDT by Red Badger
If you have a hankering for a hamburger, math may have some timesaving cooking tips for you.
Increasing the number of times a burger is flipped from one side to the other reduces its cook time by up to nearly a third, theoretical calculations suggest. But cooks at home probably won’t see much benefit out of more than three to four flips, mathematician Jean-Luc Thiffeault reports June 17 in Physica D.
Thiffeault used math to model how heat moves through an “infinite” slab of meat, which cooks continuously on only the bottom side and cools on the top until the meat is flipped. Flipping heated the meat evenly, speeding up cooking, the analysis showed. And more flips led to a faster cook. For example, flipping this theoretical 1-centimeter-thick patty just once gave it a cook time of 80 seconds, while flipping it 10 times at intervals ranging from six to 11 seconds resulted in a cook time of 69 seconds. Continuing to flip the burger led to a maximum decrease of 29 percent in cooking time.
But the timesaving benefit seemed to diminish as the number of flips increased beyond a certain threshold, says Thiffeault, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “After three or four flips, the gain in time is negligible.”
Thiffeault’s findings align with what chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt has observed in the kitchen. In a 2019 article for the food and drink website Serious Eats, Kenji López-Alt compared how long it took for a burger’s internal temperature to reach about 52° Celsius, or 125° Fahrenheit, based on cooking method. Flipping a burger every 15 seconds — as opposed to flipping the patty just once — shortened cooking time by nearly a third.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
i was taught to only flip a burger once. when the juices started to flow from the top.
If you’re lookin, you’re not cookin.
Same here. All that flipping doesn’t give you time to take a drink from your adult beverage.
Yep, multiple flips just dries it out.
And isn't that the most important ingredient in grilling?
If you’re lookin, you’re not cookin.
~~~
I might be wrong, but I prefer to keep the lid closed on the grill instead of letting the extra heat out. I know the business end of the grilling is on the direct fire (down-facing) side, but please allow me my illusions about preserving heat.
“flipping this theoretical 1-centimeter-thick patty just once gave it a cook time of 80 seconds, “
Ok. 80 seconds.
“while flipping it 10 times at intervals ranging from six to 11 seconds resulted in a cook time of 69 seconds. Continuing to flip the burger led to a maximum decrease of 29 percent in cooking time.”
Ten times at 6 second intervals, 60 seconds ok.
At 11 second intervals 110 seconds - more than 80 for one flip.
i agree with the juices flowing from the top.
a good grill pan can get you there too, BUT PUT A COVER ON THE HANDLE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO FEEL LIKE THATBURGER PATTY!!!
(plain cast iron if you use cast iron a lot - good enameled cast iron, le creuset, staub, none from china.)
Likewise.
I was taught that too. And yes, as ryderann said, you have to have time to sip the adult beverage while grilling.
Lol.
Crab maybe has different physics than hamburger.
“Yep, multiple flips just dries it out.”
That makes no sense, why would it? Read the articles (OP and the serious eats that is linked) and you will see it is not true. If it cooks a third faster, you should lose a little less liquid. Just don’t press down on the burger when you flip - that’s a major sin.
4-6 minutes on one side (depending on thickness) and then 4-6 minutes on the other side.
I also never squeeze them with the spatula. Keep all those juices in the burger.
The burgers I cook are thick and I cook them medium-rare.
I also hate the practice of having the cheese go on the burger while still on the grill. I put the cheese on only after the burgers come off the grill. The cheese still gets a little soft but doesn't turn into goo.
“flipping this theoretical 1-centimeter-thick patty just once gave it a cook time of 80 seconds”
80 seconds to grill a 1/2” thick burger? that would turn it into a charcoal patty ...
I want an outdoor gas griddle. They can do anything.
Mike Rowe in an episode of Dirty Jobs ran the grill and the cook was showing him how to get the pattern when flipping but he was having trouble with flipping at the proper angles.
Sam’s has a good one for $100.00....................
My family hates going out for burgers when I can grill them. Mine are so much better coming off a Big Green Egg.
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