How to use GrillIt

🚀 Getting Started

GrillIt is a cook log. You tell it about the grills in your backyard once, and then every time you fire one up you log the cook — what went on, how you set it up, the weather, how long it took, and how it turned out. Over time it becomes the notebook that tells you why last month's ribs were better than this month's.

Your first few minutes in the app

1. Go to the Grills tab and tap Add a Grill. Give it a name, pick its type, and check the fuel type. Do this for each grill you own.
2. If you have more than one, press and hold your go-to grill and drag it to the top — it becomes the default for new cooks.
3. Next time you cook, go to the Cooks tab, tap +, and fill in what you know while you prep. Save it.
4. When the meat goes on, open the cook and tap Start Cook. When it comes off, tap Finish Cook, rate it, and jot your notes for next time.

🔥 Cooks

Every cook you've logged, newest first. Each row shows the meat, its status, the grill (or grills — "RecTeq → Weber"), the date, how long it took, the grill temperature you set, the weather, its rating, and the first photo if there is one.

Adding a cook

Tap +. The new cook starts on your default grill (the top one on the Grills tab), and its Fuel is filled in from that grill's fuel type and usual brand. If you've filtered the list to one grill, the new cook starts on that grill instead.

Search and filter

Pull down to search by meat, event, rub, sauce, smoke wood, fuel, notes, or grill name.

The filter button at the top left narrows the list two ways — use either, or both together:

• Grill — just one grill's cooks, including ones that started or finished on it.
• Meat — every meat you've logged, with how many cooks each has. Pick one to see only those cooks.

Pick both to see, say, Ribeyes on the RecTeq. A line at the top of the list shows what's filtered and how many cooks match; tap Clear to see everything again.

Swipe actions

• Swipe right on a Prepping cook to Start it, or on a Cooking one to Finish it — handy when your hands are full at the grill.
• Swipe left to Delete a cook (its photos go with it).

A cook's page

Tap a cook to see everything about it, laid out like the paper log: the timeline, photos, temperature log, meat and prep, cook setup, weather, and results. Tap Edit to change anything — Cancel throws away your changes.

🍖 Grills

The grills you cook on. Each row shows the grill's type, fuel, model, how many cooks it's had, and when it was last used.

Adding a grill

• Name — whatever you call it ("Big Kettle", "RecTeq", "Blackstone").
• Type — Charcoal Kettle, Smoker, Kamado, Gas, Pellet, Griddle, or Other.
• Fuel type — Charcoal, Lump Charcoal, Propane, Natural Gas, Pellets, Wood, or Electric. GrillIt suggests one when you pick the type (a Griddle suggests Propane, a Pellet grill suggests Pellets), but you can choose anything.
• Make / Model and Usual brand (e.g. Kingsford Original) — optional.
• Notes — quirks, hot spots, mods, when you bought it.

Your default grill

Press and hold a grill, then drag it up or down to put your grills in any order. (You can also tap Edit at the top left and drag the ☰ handles that appear.) The grill at the top is your default — it's marked with a Default tag, and every new cook starts on it. New grills are added at the bottom, so adding one never changes your default.

A grill's page

Shows the grill's details, how many cooks it's had, its total time on the grill, and its full history. Log a Cook on… starts a new cook already set to that grill. For a two-grill cook, each grill only counts the time the meat actually spent on it.

Deleting a grill

Open the grill, tap Edit, then Delete Grill. Its cooks stay in your log under the grill's name.

⚙️ Settings

Sharing

The name your friends see when you send them a cook ("From Bruce"). See Sharing with a friend.

Backup & Restore

Export and import a backup of everything — see Backup & Restore.

Your Data

How many grills, cooks and photos you have, how many cooks friends have shared with you, and your total time on the grill.

Delete All Data

Permanently removes every grill, cook and photo — from this device and, with iCloud on, your other devices too. Export a backup first.

About

The app's version and build number. Include the build number when you contact support.

⏱ Prep, Start, Finish

Every cook moves through three stages:

• Prepping — a new cook starts here, with no clock running. Fill in the meat, rub, temps, weather and so on at your own pace, and Save. Filling all that in takes a while, so the time you open the form isn't the time the cook started.
• Start Cook — tap it on the cook's page (or swipe right on the cook in the list) when the meat goes on. That's when the clock starts. The page then shows how long it's been on the grill.
• Finish Cook — tap it (or swipe right) when it comes off. GrillIt records the finish time and shows the total cook time.

Forgot to tap Finish?

It happens — especially on short cooks, when your hands are full getting steaks off the grill. Open the cook and tap Forgot to Finish? Enter Cook Time, then dial in how long it actually cooked (say, 0 hr 15 min). GrillIt works out the finish time for you: start time + 15 minutes. The sheet shows the finish time it will save, and won't let you pick one later than now.

For a two-grill cook that has already moved — a reverse-seared steak, say — it asks How long was it on the Weber? instead, and counts from the moment you moved it. Enter the 8 minutes of searing and the finish lands right.

Tapped Finish late? On a finished cook the same button reads Fix Cook Time.

Fixing times, or logging a cook after the fact

In the cook's Edit screen, the Time section has a Prepping / Cooking / Done switch with the start and finish times. Use it to correct a time you tapped late, or to log a cook that's already over by choosing Done and setting both times — or tap Set Finish by Cook Time and just enter how long it took.

📝 What you can record

The cook form follows the paper BBQ log. Every field is optional.

🔀 Two-grill cooks

Some cooks start on one grill and finish on another — say, a long run on the pellet grill, then onto the kettle or the griddle to finish. GrillIt tracks both grills and how long the meat spent on each.

Planning it

In the cook form, set Grill to where it starts and Finish on to where it ends. (Leave Finish on as Same grill for an ordinary cook.) The cook shows as "RecTeq → Weber" everywhere.

Moving it

While the cook is going, its page shows Move to Weber Now. Tap it the moment you move the meat — GrillIt stamps the time. Didn't plan a second grill? The page shows Move to Another Grill instead, with a list to pick from.

What you get

Once it's moved, the cook's page shows the time on each grill separately — for example On RecTeq 2 hr 10 min and On Weber 25 min. The cook appears in both grills' history, and each grill's total time only counts its own share. After a few cooks, it's easy to see which grill runs slow.

🌡 Temperature log

The cook's page has a Temperature Log — the "Cooker Log" page of the paper sheet. Tap Add Temperature Check to record:

• The time (defaults to now)
• Grill temperature and/or meat temperature
• A quick note — vents, wrapped, added fuel, spritzed

Each check shows how far into the cook it was ("+2 hr 15 min"). Swipe left on one to delete it. Record which thermometer you used — your iChef probe, an instant-read for thin cuts, or both — in the cook's Thermometer field.

🌤 Weather

Wind, cold and humidity all change how a cook goes, so each cook has a Weather section: Sky (Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Cloudy, Fog, Rain, Storms, Snow), Air temp, Wind, Humidity, and notes.

Use Current Weather

Tap Use Current Weather and GrillIt fills in the sky, temperature, wind and humidity for where you are right now. The first time, iOS asks to let GrillIt use your location — only while you're using the app. If you'd rather not, just type the weather in yourself.

📷 Photos

Add photos while you're logging a cook or any time after from its page:

• Add Photos — pick up to 10 at a time from your library.
• Take Photo — use the camera right there.

Tap a photo to see it full screen; swipe between them, share one, or delete it. The first photo appears as a thumbnail on the cook's row.

Photos are saved at phone-screen size — about 100 KB each instead of the 2 MB or so a camera photo takes — so a year of cooks uses very little space. Your original stays in your Photos library if it came from there.

⭐ Rating & notes for next time

In Results, rate the cook from 1 to 10 stars — tap a star to set it, tap the same star again (or Clear) to remove it. The score shows as ★ 8/10 on the cook's row.

How it turned out is for the bark, smoke ring, tenderness, juiciness and flavor. Notes for next time is the one to fill in every time — it's what Cook This Again shows you before your next cook.

🔁 Cook This Again

At the bottom of any cook's page, Cook This Again starts a new cook with the same setup, in Prepping:

• Copied: grill (and finish grill), meat, count, prep, rub and sauce, method, temperatures you set, thermometer, fuel, and smoke wood.
• Cleared: times, weight, price, final meat temp, weather, before-cooking notes, rating, and results.

Last time's notes for next time appear at the top of the form, so you see them before you start.

🤝 Sharing with a friend

Grill with a friend who also logs cooks? You can send each other cooks — one at a time, only when you choose to. Nothing is ever shared automatically.

Sending a cook

Open one of your cooks and tap the Share button (top right). Pick one:

• Share as PDF — a one-page cook card with the photo, times (including time on each grill), meat, setup, weather, temperature log and your notes. Send it by Messages, Mail, or anything else — they don't need GrillIt to read it.
• Send to a GrillIt User — the same PDF plus a small GrillIt file. The first time, GrillIt asks for your name so your friend sees who it's from (change it any time in Settings → Sharing).

Receiving a cook — the Other Cooks tab

When a friend sends you a cook, tap the attached .grillitcook file in Messages or Mail. GrillIt opens and files it under Other Cooks, grouped by who sent it. (Saved it to Files instead? Tap the ↓ button on the Other Cooks tab.)

• Shared cooks are read-only and kept separate — they never mix into your own Cooks, grills, or totals.
• Cook This Again copies a friend's meat, prep, temps and wood into a new cook of your own, on your default grill.
• If the same friend sends the same cook again, it's updated instead of added twice.
• Swipe left to delete one — it's only removed from your phone.

💾 Backup & Restore

With iCloud on, your log is already synced and safe in your iCloud account. A backup file is an extra copy you control.

Export Backup

Settings → Export Backup saves one file — every grill, cook and photo — named like 2026-10-04_1830_GrillIt_Backup.json. Save it to Files, Dropbox, or email it to yourself. Because photos are inside it, the file grows as you add them (a year of cooks with a few photos each is typically a few tens of MB).

Import Backup

Settings → Import Backup and pick a backup file. Import merges with what you already have: grills and cooks already in the app are updated from the file, new ones are added, and nothing is ever deleted. Importing the same file twice is safe. Backups from older versions of GrillIt still restore.

❓ FAQ