Announcing the BBQ Geek iPhone App
The calculators now have a real iPhone app, and it does the one thing the website never could: it wakes your phone up when it is time to wrap.
Every calculator on this site works backwards from the moment you want to eat. That is fine when you are sitting at a laptop planning a cook. It is less fine at 3 a.m. when the brisket is four hours in and you are trying to remember whether the stall should have hit by now.
The BBQ Geek app puts all four calculators on your home screen, works with no signal at the smoker, and will tap you on the shoulder at every step of the cook.
All four calculators
Your whole cook, on the clock
Alerts at every step
What it does
Enter the weight, your smoker temperature and when you want to eat. The app works backwards and hands you the whole schedule: when to light the fire, when the meat goes on, when the stall and wrap window land, when it should be probe tender, and when to slice.
It is the same math as the site. Cook time scales with thickness, not weight, so a 16 lb packer does not take twice as long as an 8 lb flat, and every estimate comes with an honest range and a buffer you control.
- Brisket Cook Time — packer or flat, any pit temp, paper, foil or naked.
- Brisket Cook & Hold — finish early and hold it sous vide to an exact serving time.
- Rib Cook Time — baby backs, St. Louis or spares, plus when to spritz and sauce.
- Pulled Pork Cook Time — bone-in or boneless, one butt or six.
The part that is new: cook alerts
Tap Set cook alerts under any timeline and the app schedules a lock-screen notification for every step, plus a fifteen-minute heads-up before each one. Put the phone in your pocket and go do something else.
They are marked time-sensitive, which means they come through Sleep Focus. That matters, because the wrap on an overnight brisket almost always lands at the worst possible hour. Change the plan and the app notices and offers to reschedule. The alerts are set on the phone itself, so they fire whether or not you have a signal in the backyard.
What it costs
The app is free and all four calculators are free in it, forever, with no account and no ads.
Cook alerts are part of BBQ Geek Pro, a one-time $4.99 purchase. Not a subscription. It covers the Apple developer account and the time that goes into the calculators, and if you have ever used these tools for a cook and thought about buying me a beer, that is the button.
What it does not do
No account. No sign-in. No ads. No tracking. Nothing you type goes anywhere: the cook you are planning is stored on your phone and nowhere else, which is also why it works fine with the Wi-Fi off. The privacy policy is short for the same reason.
Questions
- Is there an Android version?
- Not in the Play Store yet. Android and desktop users can still install the web app version, which has all four calculators offline; it just cannot send the alerts. If enough people ask, the Play Store version is the next build.
- Do I have to pay to use the calculators?
- No. Download it, use all four, pay nothing. The purchase only unlocks cook alerts.
- Does it work without cell service?
- Yes, that is the whole point. Every calculator and every alert runs on the phone.
- I bought Pro and got a new phone.
- Open the Pro sheet and tap Restore purchase. It is tied to your Apple ID, so it follows you to the new phone at no extra cost.
- Will the website calculators stay free?
- Yes. Every calculator on this site stays exactly where it is, free, no app required.