Burnt food is the product of burning raw or cooked food. Most burnt foods are grey in colour. Nearly all burnt foods are tradeable. Nearly all burnt food is stackable.
As players train Cooking, they will periodically and randomly fail to cook something properly. The result is a burnt version of the item that the player was attempting to cook. As an example, if a player tries to cook a raw shark and burns it they will obtain the item 'burnt shark.' The same holds true for items such as burnt cake, burnt meat, and burnt fish, where the item name holds the general form 'burnt [item].'
As you increase your Cooking level beyond what is required for that particular food, you will gradually burn less, as is made obvious by the logic of getting better at cooking. With many raw items, especially lower to mid level items, you will eventually stop burning some types of food entirely, but will often need an extensive amount of training to reach the appropriate zero-burn level. An example being raw monkfish, which is accessed at Cooking level 62 does not reach zero-burn until level 92, 30 levels higher. Other than increasing your Cooking level, there are several methods of decreasing the chance of burning.
Burnt food items are completely worthless, and cannot be sold on the Grand Exchange. They are tradeable, but retain their uselessness and the minimum trade value of 1gp each. Players can offload their burnt food at the general store for 1 coin each, which is generally minuscule compared to the amount it can cost a player to purchase the raw food item.
The lists below provide both the minimum requirements for cooking the item as well as the level at which the item will no longer be burnt. Some of the high level foods never reach the 'no-burn' point, with the list including items on the level magnitude of raw shark. As such, some players choose to wait before beginning to cook foods they have just met the requirements for, as they will usually burn more than half of the food they are trying to cook. Burning food provides no experience, so it is something to be avoided in earnest.
- Fires have the greatest chance of burning food, but possesses the advantages of on-the-spot flexibility and slightly increased Cooking experience (if the fire was created by a player).
- Standard ranges have a lesser chance of burning food as compared with using fires, but cannot be made anywhere like a fire. If a player wishes to burn less food, they can seek out a range. The only downside is that they cannot be used on-the-spot, so running back and forth to the bank, and the time/distance from and to the bank must be taken into account to maximise productivity.
- The Cook-o-matic 25 on the ground floor of Lumbridge Castle has the special distinction of some sort of enchantment that decreases the rate of food burning when cooked on it (however, this only works on lower level foods). Its anti-burning bonus is not especially large, but is significant especially when a player is near or at a level where their chosen food items tend to burn a lot. Access to this range is granted through the completion of the low level quest Cook's Assistant, but its location could be slightly more convenient, even with a bank is two floors above. Members have the option of completing at least part of the quest Recipe for Disaster which grants the player access to a bank chest in the cellar of the castle, a mere one floor down.
- Members wearing the cooking gauntlets obtained during the Family Crest quest will be awarded a lower burn rate for fish, including lobsters, monkfish, swordfish, sharks, cavefish, and rocktails anywhere that they are cooked, such as campfires. It is unclear if the cooking gauntlets and Lumbridge range anti-burning bonuses complement each other, but the general knowledge suggests that they do stack. The information on the exact anti-burning bonus of the cooking gauntlets is based on statistical data and has not been officially disclosed by Jagex, but it is fairly reliable.
- The Bake Pie Lunar spell will never burn a pie. The only drawback is that, as per its name, it is only effective for cooking pies. Players may choose to assemble a large number of pies and cook them all without ever moving a single step, train both the Magic and Cooking skills at the same time. This is extremely useful for high level pies which tend to burn at a high rate, but is very complex compared to regular cooking and requires a substantial amount of questing and Magic training. Bake Pie is members only.
- Members wearing a Cooking cape cannot burn any type of food at all, even food that never reaches the 'no-burn' threshold otherwise. This effect only applies on members worlds.
- During the 2013 Christmas event, players cooking food on Thok's bonfire in the Lumbridge Crater had a reduced chance of burning their food.
Obtaining burnt food[]
Burning food is a normal occurrence when training cooking. Burning can happen when the player's cooking level is not much higher than the level requirement to cook the food. It can also occur if a player cooks food that is already cooked when the burnt food is required for a quest. When cooking, using a range rather than an open fire will decrease the chances of burning it. Most food has a certain cooking level at which it will become impossible to burn. This level is decreased when a player is wearing cooking gauntlets. Imps are known to drop burnt bread and burnt meat.
Types of burnt food[]
Trivia[]
- Ruined chompy and Snake over-cooked are the only types of burnt food not prefixed with 'burnt'.
- Before Tutorial Island was removed, a player had to cook shrimp during the tutorial. However, they would always burn it on their first try.
- After a hidden update, an "eat" option was added to burnt food. However, when the player clicks on the option, they will not eat it and instead say "Ugh, this is inedible." This option was not added to burnt slimy eels, rainbow fish or turkey.
- Burnt food items can be sold to general stores for 1 coin each. Many players also buy and collect burnt food.
- Burnt lobsters used to be a popular scamming item. A player would claim that it was a "rare" black lobster and sell it for a high price.
- Prior to an update, burnt food was able to be sold in the Grand Exchange.
- Prior to an update, outside of Daemonheim, potatoes would always burn on a fire.
- Previously, burnt food did not stack in a player's inventory and had to be dropped one-by-one. Burnt turkey and drumsticks are an exception to this and do not stack.
- Most burnt food items have an examine text of "Oops!". Exceptions to this include:
- Bread: "Nice crispy bread. Possibly too crispy."
- Cake: "Argh, what a mess!"
- Cave eel: "It's no longer slimy, or edible."
- Chicken and turkey: "Oh dear, it's totally burnt!"
- Minnow and crayfish: "A burnt minnow/crayfish."
- Monkfish: "Maybe a little less heat next time."
- Pies: "I think I left it on the stove too long."
- Pork pie: "A waste of pastry and pork."
- Rainbow fish: "Used to be a colourful fish, but now it's burnt!"
- Slimy eel: "It looks like it's seen one too many fires."
- Snail: "A slightly super-saute'ed snail."
- Spider on shaft: "A badly burnt spider threaded onto a charred arrow shaft."
