Dr Michelle Dickinson: Nanogirl talks the science of flipping burgers

We are talking burgers…. 

When you cook a burger do you flip it once, lots of times or never? 

There are lots of theories around the perfect burger cooking technique, but mathematics has finally found the answer! 

Mathematician Jean-Luc Thiffeault has just published a mathematical model of burger flipping that lets you to cook burgers 29% more quickly. 

Published in the journal Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena  

The model makes some assumptions including that: 

1 - The burger is 1cm thick flat and infinite in width (the infinite thing makes the maths easier). 

2 - The burger is exposed to 200 ⁰C of heat on one side through a heating element and fresh air on the other. 

3 - Heat escapes from the burger on the side exposed to the fresh air assumed to be at 25 ⁰C. 

4 - The radiation and heat transfer coefficient is 60 Watts per square meter per degree centigrade. 

5 - The burger is considered cooked when it reaches a temperature of 70 ⁰C, if you ate this burger you would perceive it as well done. 

The conclusion is that you should flip your burger 3-4 times for the most efficient cooking technique. 

If you flipped the burger once, your total cook time would come in at 80 seconds. 

After three or four flips the total cook time reduces to only 69 seconds. 

While you can continue to flip the burger, the benefits are negligible with the study going out to 10 flips (one every 6 - 11 seconds) with no real reduction in cook time.  

 While for most of us, saving a few seconds cooking a burger probably won't make a huge difference in our lives - if you own a large burger restaurant it could make a huge difference! 

While this research is great - I'm not a "well done" type of burger girl and my burgers are always over 1cm thick so I think I'll take it with a pinch of salt! 

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