Can You Fry an Egg on a Driveway on a Hot Day?

Sena tried to fry an egg on our driveway yesterday—and it did not go well. Let’s get the basic internet caveat out of the way. Somebody is always asking this question about whether or not you can fry an egg on a hot day.

The usual answer is something like, “It’s possible but not probable” because concrete is not conductive enough to fry an egg. It takes a temperature of 158 degrees Fahrenheit to fry an egg the regular way. But concrete gets to only about 145 degrees. When you think about it, that’s not much of a difference, though.

We’ve been in this heat wave this week, and the temperatures have been close to 100 degrees most days. You can’t count the heat index because that’s just measure of how hot humans feel when you correct for humidity combined with the air temperature. Just for the record, it did get up to around 107 degrees with the heat index.

So, she cracked an egg on our driveway and here’s what happened.

She started the test at around 11:15 a.m., checked it 5 minutes later (really no change), re-checked it at around noon, no change of course, then didn’t check it again until around 5 p.m. See the short slide show below.

The most interesting thing was the egg shell was gone. We’re not sure what took it, but many animals will eat them: birds, squirrels, chipmunks, dogs, cats, mice, and Bigfoot although he prefers beef jerky. Ants were feasting on the dried-up egg remains.

It’s pretty hot—but not hot enough to cook an egg on concrete. Even if you think you get the job done, don’t ever eat the results.

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Author: James Amos

I'm a retired consult-liaison psychiatrist. I navigated the path in a phased retirement program through the hospital where I was employed. I was fully retired as of June 30, 2020. This blog chronicles my journey.

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