🥚 Boiled Egg Cooking Timer (Soft, Jammy & Hard)

Exact boiling times for soft, jammy and hard-boiled eggs. Adjusts for egg size, fridge-cold or room-temperature start, and your altitude.

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How do you want the yolk?

Tender white, custardy yolk — ramen eggs.

Egg size

Your altitude

Straight from the fridge (room-temperature eggs cook about 45 seconds faster)Cold-water start — eggs go into cold water and you bring it to the boil, rather than lowering them into water already boiling

7:00

Jammy egg, 7 min 0 sec at a simmer

Move the eggs into iced water the moment the timer ends. That is what stops the cooking and prevents the gray ring — the ring is iron and sulfur reacting at the yolk surface when a hard-boiled egg stays hot, not a sign you did anything else wrong.

A runny or jammy yolk is not fully cooked. Food-safety guidance is to cook eggs until both white and yolk are firm if you are pregnant, very young, over 65, or immunocompromised.

Times assume a gentle simmer rather than a violent rolling boil, which cracks shells without cooking faster — water cannot get hotter than its boiling point however hard you heat it. Pan size, how many eggs you add at once and how cold they are all shift the result by up to a minute, so treat the first batch as calibration.

What Boiled Egg Cooking Timer (Soft, Jammy & Hard) Does

Boiling an egg is a race between the white and the yolk. Egg white starts setting around 62°C and is firm by about 70°C; yolk begins thickening near 65°C and sets fully around 70°C. Because heat arrives from the outside, the white passes through its whole range before the yolk gets going — and every style of boiled egg is just a decision about when to stop.

The times everyone quotes assume you lower the egg into water that is already boiling. Starting eggs in cold water and bringing the pan up is at least as common and takes several minutes longer, because the egg is cooking throughout the heat-up. A timer that does not ask which method you are using is wrong for half the people reading it.

Altitude matters too, and it is straightforward physics: water boils cooler as pressure falls, roughly 1°C for every 285 meters. In Denver water boils at about 94°C rather than 100°C, so the egg cooks in cooler water and needs noticeably longer. This calculator computes the boiling point exactly; the extra time is a rule of thumb, and it is labeled as one.

The gray-green ring around the yolk of an overcooked egg is iron from the yolk reacting with sulfur from the white. It is harmless, it forms when a cooked egg stays hot, and moving eggs straight into iced water prevents it.

How to Use Boiled Egg Cooking Timer (Soft, Jammy & Hard)

Select desired yolk doneness (Soft Runny, Jammy Medium, or Hard Boiled)
Choose egg size (Medium, Large, Extra Large) and starting temperature (Fridge vs Room Temp)
Lower egg into boiling water and follow the timer duration

Formula Used by Boiled Egg Cooking Timer (Soft, Jammy & Hard)

Boiling point falls with altitude

boiling point (°C) ≈ 100 − altitude in meters ÷ 285

285 m: roughly the rise needed to drop the boiling point by 1°C near sea level
why it matters: water cannot exceed its boiling point however hard you heat it, so cooler water means slower cooking

Worked example

Denver, 1,609 m above sea level.

1609 ÷ 285 = 5.6
100 − 5.6 = 94.4°C, or about 202°F

Result: The water is nearly 6°C cooler than at sea level, so standard times undercook. Expect to add time and check the first egg.

Times from a boiling-water start, large egg, from the fridge

Lower the egg into simmering water and start the clock. Subtract about 45 seconds for room-temperature eggs; add roughly 5 minutes in total for a cold-water start.

Time	White	Yolk	Good for
6 min	Just set	Liquid	Dipping
7 min	Tender	Custardy, jammy	Ramen, salads
9 min	Firm	Set at the edge, soft in the middle	Halving, sandwiches
11 min	Firm	Fully set	Egg mayonnaise, picnics
15 min+	Rubbery	Chalky with a gray ring	Overcooked

Boiling point by altitude

Computed from the formula above. The temperature is physics; the time adjustment is a heuristic.

Altitude	Water boils at	Example
Sea level	100.0°C / 212°F	—
500 m	98.2°C / 209°F	Munich
1,000 m	96.5°C / 206°F	Johannesburg is a little higher
1,609 m	94.4°C / 202°F	Denver
2,240 m	92.1°C / 198°F	Mexico City
3,000 m	89.5°C / 193°F	Ski resorts, high Andes

Setting temperatures

Why timing works at all — the two parts of an egg set in different, overlapping ranges.

Component	Starts to set	Fully set
Egg white	about 62°C / 144°F	about 70°C / 158°F
Egg yolk	about 65°C / 149°F	about 70°C / 158°F

How to Read Your Result

Simmer, do not boil hard

Water cannot get hotter than its boiling point, so a violent rolling boil adds no heat at all — it just knocks the eggs together and cracks them. A gentle simmer cooks at exactly the same temperature with fewer casualties.

Ice water immediately

The egg keeps cooking on residual heat after it leaves the pan, and that carry-over is what turns a perfect jammy yolk chalky. Iced water stops it and makes shells easier to peel, because the rapid contraction separates the membrane.

Older eggs peel better

A fresh egg has a low pH and its membrane clings to the white. Eggs a week or two old peel far more cleanly. Steaming instead of boiling helps for the same reason, and so does starting in hot rather than cold water.

Runny yolks are not fully cooked

Soft and jammy eggs are undercooked by food-safety standards. Guidance is to cook both white and yolk until firm if you are pregnant, very young, over 65 or immunocompromised.

Limitations & Accuracy Notes

Times are a starting point. Pan size, water volume, how many eggs go in at once and how cold they are all shift the result by up to a minute.
The altitude time adjustment is a rule of thumb, not a measured curve. The boiling point calculation is sound; the extra minutes are an estimate.
Egg size categories vary by country, and individual eggs vary within a category.
Steaming and pressure cooking behave differently and are not modeled here.
Not food-safety advice. Follow your local food agency's guidance, particularly for anyone in a vulnerable group.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should I boil an egg for a jammy ramen yolk?

A standard large egg straight from the refrigerator requires exactly 7 minutes (420 seconds) in boiling water, followed by an immediate ice water bath.

Why should boiled eggs be placed in an ice bath?

The ice bath immediately halts the cooking process, preventing rubbery whites and creating steam separation between the albumen and shell for effortless peeling.

How long does an egg take to boil?

From boiling water, roughly six minutes for a runny yolk, eight for jammy and ten to twelve for fully set. Size, starting temperature and altitude all shift it, which is why a calculator beats a single remembered number.

Why does altitude change the timing?

Because water boils at a lower temperature as pressure falls — around 100°C at sea level but noticeably less high up. Lower temperature means slower cooking, so eggs need longer at altitude even though the water is visibly boiling.

Should I start in cold water or boiling?

Either works, but they are not interchangeable and timings differ completely. Starting in boiling water gives more consistent results because timing begins at a known point; cold-start timing depends on how fast your hob heats.

How do I stop the gray-green ring around the yolk?

That ring is iron sulfide from overcooking. Cook for less time and cool the eggs immediately in cold water. It is harmless, but it signals the egg went further than intended.

Why are fresh eggs so hard to peel?

Because the pH of the white is lower when fresh, so it bonds more tightly to the membrane. Slightly older eggs peel far more easily, and steaming rather than boiling helps considerably with fresh ones.

Is anything sent to a server?

No. The calculation runs in your browser.

References & Further Reading

FoodSafety.gov — safe minimum internal temperatures — The US guidance quoted above: raw eggs should be cooked until yolk and white are firm

By OnlineToolHubs Team • September 2026