This egg boiling calculator gives the minutes for your target yolk — soft, jammy, medium or hard — adjusted for egg size, starting temperature and altitude, using the boiling-water-start method the test kitchens standardized on.

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Minutes, Measured from the Boil

The reproducible method — the one behind every reliable chart — starts eggs in ALREADY boiling water, because a cold-start’s timing depends on your stove, pot and water volume, while boiling-start depends only on the clock. From immersion, large fridge-cold eggs run: 6 minutes soft (set white, fully runny yolk), 7 jammy (the custardy ramen-egg center), 9 medium, 11 hard (firm throughout, yolk still pale). The defaults return the crowd favorite — large, fridge, jammy: 7.5 minutes with the fridge adjustment included. Then the ice bath is not a suggestion: carryover heat keeps cooking the yolk for minutes, and the shock also separates membrane from white — the peeling difference between a bath and no bath is the difference between smooth eggs and pockmarked ones.

The adjustments are physics, not folklore. Bigger eggs are bigger thermal masses (about ±30 seconds per size grade). Altitude lowers water’s boiling point (~1 °F per 500 ft), so yolks set slower — a minute per 5,000 ft is the working compensation, and Denver cooks learn quickly that sea-level charts lie to them. Egg age matters for peeling (week-old eggs peel easiest — the air cell grows and pH rises) but not for timing. And the steam method (eggs steamed over boiling water) uses these same minutes — the heat transfer is comparable once the steam is rolling.

Worked Examples (Verified)

  • Default jammy egg: large + fridge → 7.5 min.
  • Soft, room-temp, medium egg: 6 − 0.5 + 0 = 5.5 min.
  • Hard at altitude (5,280 ft, large, fridge): 11 + 0.5 + ~1 = 12.5 min.

Egg Boiling Discipline

  • Boiling start, timer from immersion — the only version of this chart that’s portable between kitchens.
  • Ice bath ≥ 5 minutes: stops cooking at your chosen doneness and buys the easy peel.
  • Don’t crowd: eggs in a single layer with water an inch over — a stacked pot cooks unevenly.
  • Older eggs peel better; for a peeling-critical batch (deviled eggs), buy the eggs a week ahead.
  • Gray-green ring = iron sulfide from overcooking or slow cooling: harmless, and fully prevented by the timer + bath.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long to boil eggs for soft, jammy and hard?

With the boiling-water start (large eggs, from the fridge): 6 minutes soft (runny yolk), 7 minutes jammy (custardy — the ramen egg), 9 minutes medium, 11 minutes hard. Add or subtract ~30 seconds per egg-size grade, subtract 30 seconds for room-temperature eggs, add ~1 minute per 5,000 ft of altitude. This calculator adds the adjustments to your selections automatically — then ice-bath them to lock the result.

Why do my boiled eggs have a green ring?

Chemistry, not spoilage: overcooking (or slow cooling) lets sulfur from the white react with iron in the yolk, painting a ferrous sulfide ring and adding a sulfurous smell. Prevention is this page’s whole method: time precisely, then ice-bath immediately. The eggs are safe to eat either way, but the ring is a reliable signature that the timer was ignored — deviled-egg reputations have suffered for less.

How do I make boiled eggs peel easily?

Three factors, in order of power: (1) start in boiling water (the shock helps release the membrane), (2) use eggs that are 7–10 days old rather than farm-fresh (interior pH rises with age and the white clings less), (3) ice-bath fully and peel under a thin stream of water, starting from the air-cell (wider) end. Baking soda in the water is folklore with marginal evidence; the three factors above are the test-kitchen consensus.

Boil or steam — which is better?

Equivalent times, similar results: steaming (eggs in a basket over boiling water, lid on) uses the same minute chart as this page and is gentler on shells (fewer cracks, since eggs don’t knock around) and easier for large batches. Pressure-cooker “5-5-5” style methods also work (5 minutes at pressure, 5 natural release, 5 ice bath ≈ hard). Pick the heat source; keep the timing discipline.

How long do boiled eggs keep?

In the shell, refrigerated: up to one week. Peeled: 2–3 days, stored in water changed daily or wrapped damp. Room temperature: 2 hours is the food-safety limit for cooked eggs as for other perishables. Mark the boiled ones (a pencil dot or a separate carton) — the spin test distinguishes raw from cooked in a pinch (cooked spins smoothly, raw wobbles).

Why did my egg crack in the pot?

Thermal shock (fridge egg, violent boil) plus the expanding air cell: the trapped air expands faster than the shell’s pores vent it. Mitigations: a gentle (not rolling-violent) boil, eggs lowered in with a spoon rather than dropped, a pinhole in the wide end (egg piercers exist for this), or 5 minutes of counter rest before the pot. The boiling-start method raises crack risk slightly — the piercer and the gentle boil are its accepted countermeasures.

What are ajitama / ramen eggs timed at?

The jammy setting on this page: large eggs from the fridge, 7–7.5 minutes from boiling immersion, ice bath, then peeled and marinated (typically soy-mirin) for 4–12 hours. The marinade doesn’t cook further; the 7-minute yolk is the whole craft. For room-temperature eggs subtract the half minute the calculator encodes. Consistency across a batch matters more than the exact half-minute — same size, same start, same timer.

Is this egg boiling calculator free?

Yes — free, instant, no sign-up. Pick doneness, size, start temperature and altitude for your exact minutes and method notes.