How to Fish Cooking: The Grill, the 1.5x Multiplier and Burnt Fish

Cooking in How to Fish is a flat multiplier on whatever you are holding: raw is 1.0x, cooked is 1.5x, and burnt is 0.1x. That is the whole system, and the third number is the one that costs players money. The grill unlock, the random weight roll, the casino payout and the Killscore bonus all stack on top of that first figure. Press F on a held item at any time to see its current value, cooking multiplier, weight and Killscore — the readout updates live while the item cooks.

The short version:

• Cooked is 1.5x the item's base value; burnt is 0.1x, which is below raw
• The grill is unlocked on Island 3 by handing the grill master a shark
• Every tick adds 0.025 cooking progress, so the cooked window is short
• Weapons can cook too, and since patch 1.0.10 a dip in water washes the state off
• Magma on Island 5 applies the same 1.5x multiplier as the grill

The Full Value Formula

Most guides stop at "cooking is 1.5x". The game's data has five factors stacked together, and knowing which ones you can control is the difference between a good sale and a donation:

TotalWorth = base value × random weight × cooking multiplier × casino multiplier × Killscore multiplier

The random weight is why two identical fish never sell for the same amount. A catch that rolls 0.9 and one that rolls 1.3 differ by more than 40%, and the game hides the roll until you inspect the item. Cooking, by contrast, is fully under your control — which makes it the one multiplier in that table you should never get wrong.

Cooking Multipliers and What They Pay

Worked examples using base values from the game data, ignoring the weight roll for clarity:

Read the last column as a warning rather than a curiosity. Burning a Stonefish turns a $2,250 sale into $150 — a $2,100 swing created by a few seconds of inattention. The weight roll then multiplies whatever state you land on, so one cooked Stonefish can sell anywhere from roughly $562 to $3,937 depending on the roll.

How the Grill Actually Works

• Each tick advances cooking progress by 0.025
• The item crosses into cooked, and keeps going if you leave it there
• Holding the item and pressing F shows the live multiplier, so you can watch it change in real time
• Taking the item off the grill freezes whatever state it is in — there is no undo and no reset button

The practical routine is boring and it works. Put the meat on, open the inspect readout, and pull it the moment the multiplier reads 1.5. If you are cooking several items, cook them one at a time instead of filling the whole grill and hoping. The grill does not warn you before the item tips into burnt.

Unlocking the Grill on Island 3

The grill is not available from the start. The grill master on Island 3 is throwing a party and wants a shark. Hand one over, and he cooks it, eats it, and gives you a lighter — after which the grill stays unlocked permanently for that save. The Desert Island guide covers where to find him and what else that island gates behind NPC requests.

Until that hand-in happens, raw is what you sell. That matters for early money: on the first two islands your income is base value times weight and nothing else, which is one reason the first hours feel slow. How to Fish is a two-person project from Dazed Games and the cooking values here come from the shipped game files; the Steam store page and SteamDB's app page are the fastest way to confirm which build you are on.

Island 5: Magma Cooking

The volcanic island gives you a second cooking surface, and it behaves exactly like the grill: magma applies the same 1.5x cooking multiplier. If you are already carrying meat around the volcano — the whale chain puts you there — the magma is a free upgrade over selling raw. The risk is identical too. Leave the item in too long and you get 0.1x instead of 1.5x, and magma is considerably less forgiving to stand next to than a beach grill.

Yes, You Can Cook Weapons

Weapons and tools are items, so the cooking system applies to them as well. A burnt weapon is worth 0.1x of its value, and several weapons sell for real money — the Sniper Rifle at $1,800, the Assault Rifle at $9,000, the SMG at $300. A forgotten gun sitting next to the grill is a genuine loss rather than a joke.

Patch 1.0.10 added the fix: dipping a weapon or tool in water washes the cooking state off. That is where the community habit of jumping into the sea with a burnt gun comes from. The same patch also made dropped items persist across saves, up to 64 items with weapons, tools and quest items taking priority, so a burnt weapon left on the sand is still there when you come back.

Official source: How to Fish patch notes on Steam — the 1.0.10 entry documents both the water-wash behavior and dropped-item persistence across saves.

When Cooking Makes Money and When It Does Not

That casino row is why cooking and gambling belong in the same conversation. The roulette's green payout is 35x and the Rich! Millionaire achievement needs a $100,000 sale. Working backward: 100,000 divided by 35 is about 2,858, so the item you push onto green needs to be worth roughly that much. Cooked at 1.5x, the raw version only has to be about 1,906 — and the community habit of cooking to around 3,200 before betting green is that same math with a safety margin. The casino itself does not appear until the Island 4 chain, so early cooking is simply money, not gambling capital.

Common Cooking Mistakes

• Leaving the grill unwatched. The distance between 1.5x and 0.1x is measured in seconds.
• Cooking trophies. Boss trophies such as the Albatross Head, Spidercrab Shell and Whale Fin are worth 0 because they are quest items. Cooking cannot multiply zero.
• Cooking the meat a quest still wants. The grill master takes a shark and the whale chain wants fins. Cook what is genuinely spare.
• Forgetting weapons near fire. Check the readout before you store a gun beside a grill or magma pool.
• Assuming the price is fixed. The weight roll changes every catch, so comparing two sales of the same species does not tell you anything about the multiplier.

FAQ

How much does cooking increase value in How to Fish?

By 1.5x on the item's base value. Raw is 1.0x and burnt is 0.1x, which is a tenth of base value — below raw and effectively a loss.

How do I unlock the grill?

Hand the grill master on Island 3 a shark. He cooks it, eats it and gives you a lighter, and the grill is permanently unlocked from then on. There is no purchase price for the grill itself.

Can you cook guns in How to Fish?

Yes. Weapons and tools are items, so they can be cooked and burnt like fish, and a burnt weapon sells for 0.1x of its value. Since patch 1.0.10, dipping it in water washes the cooking state off.

How do I uncook a weapon?

Put it in water. The 1.0.10 patch notes describe weapons and tools losing their cooking state when they enter water, and that is the only documented reset.

Does magma cook food?

Yes. The magma on Island 5 applies the same 1.5x cooking multiplier as the Island 3 grill, with the same burn risk if you leave the item in.

Why did my cooked fish sell for less than expected?

The random weight roll. Prices use a Gaussian distribution with a mean of 1.0 and a standard deviation of 0.15, clipped between 0.25 and 1.75, so the same fish sells differently every time. Press F to see the actual weight and multiplier before you commit to a sale.

Related Guides

• Desert Island Guide — where the grill master is and what unlocks the grill
• Money Farming Guide — cooking is the first multiplier in every money route
• All Fish Locations — which species are worth catching and cooking
• Bait Guide: All Tiers — the lures that bring the valuable species
• Fishipedia Checklist — tracking the rarest cookable catches
• How to Fish Wiki — the full game reference, systems included