Take notes! Whenever you cook, keep a log, at least until your methods are instinctive. There are so many variables to master. You should be making notes on the meat, its grade, its weight, where you bought it, how you prepared it, what rubs and sauce you used, the cooker temperature, ambient air temp, the wood you used, when you added wood and how much, etc. When you are done, note what it tasted like and what needs improvement. Study the info. Put your cooking logs in a notebook. You learn a lot about the performance of your cooker and the cook when you keep a log of them.
Click here to download a free printable PDF version of my cooking log.
Sign up for a free trial of the AmazingRibs.com Pitmaster Club and experience everything that the world's largest membership-based BBQ and grilling community has to offer!
Before you can post a comment or question you must sign into our commenting partner, Disqus. This helps make sure everyone hanging around the grill is civil. We do not tolerate nastiness, racism, porn, inappropriate language, or attacks on others. All comments are the property of AmazingRibs.com and we reserve the right to quote them, edit them, delete them, and block people from making future comments.
Please leave comments and questions on the same page that is devoted to that subject so others can see questions and our answers when they are reading about the subject. You must enable JavaScript to use the comments section, and you must accept cookies to post comments. Note: the software that runs Disqus is different from the Pitmaster Club, so members need to sign into the Pitmaster Club separately.