Cookback - Write it down. Cook it back. A BBQ, baking and cook journal.

Cookback is a journal for recording what actually happens in the kitchen and at the pit—not just the recipe or plan you started with. Add quick notes, photos, temperatures, timing, and adjustments as you cook. When you’re done, Cookback can turn everything into a useful recap, and each new attempt becomes part of that dish’s history. So the next time you make it, you can see what worked, what didn’t, and what you wanted to change instead of starting from memory again. Private and ad-free!

I'm relatively new to grilling and smoking. Last year, I got my first grill: a 22" charcoal kettle. I have had a blast using it and learning fire management. I even smoked a few overnight briskets on it. More recently, I got a pellet grill (we'll quibble over whether it's a real grill later). I've had it for a month now and have been trying to cook on it at least 3 nights a week. I've gone thru a brisket, a few racks of ribs, a few salmons, a couple pork butts, shrimp, steaks, and more. During this process, I started writing down everything I did in a standard text editor: when I dry brined it the night before, what time I put it on the grill, when I had to adjust the temp, when I pulled it, how long it rest, and a retrospective of what I thought of it and what I should adjust for next time. From this flow came the idea that I could build something that's still an easy-to-use text editor but offers more on top of that. Introducing Cookback: it features a standard Markdown-supported text editor that auto-stamps your lines with the time you wrote it, so you never have to try and remember when you recorded it. You can quickly add a note, via text or speech, directly from your phone's lockscreen -- great for messy hands. When you're done, wrap up your note, and get it auto-categorized, timings calculated, suggested ratings, and Cookback's take on your own words. As you cook the same style of dish multiple times, those cooks will get grouped together in to a Dish which allows you to quickly see past iterations and how you're improving. Later, you can Ask Cookback questions based on your cooks, and it'll respond grounded in your own words/learnings rather than generic advice. Curious how long a pork butt typically takes you? Wondering what successful ways you've used a seasoning in your pantry? Trying to understand why that last brisket was dry? Ask Cookback! When you want to repeat a previous cook, whether it's because you want to try and improve on it, or it was simply successful enough that you want to repeat it, you can choose to cook it back. This will duplicate your note, suggest timings for each step based on how long each step took you last time (relative to the time when you actually start this new cook), and make each step one that you can check off as you go (including a quick Done action for the current step on your lockscreen). If you find a recipe you like online, whether on a website or featured in a video on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, you can quickly import that instead. Cookback will automatically convert it in to a note with the list of ingredients for you to check off, the cooking steps, and also steps from the recipe that Cookback decides can be pre-cook Prep steps. Cookback is free to use, free to keep your journal, with no ads, no tracking, and no reason to subscribe unless you want to continue using the Cookback Pro AI features. Your journal always stays private and stored only on your device, with only individual relevant notes being sent to Cookback's backend for use with the AI features (but never saved by us). Available now for iOS and Android!

Cookback - Write it down. Cook it back. A BBQ, baking and cook journal.

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