Pick the meat and the moment you want to eat — PitSlate schedules the whole cook backward: trim, season, fire, wrap window, rest, slice. Then it rides along, logging temps and notes, and talks you through the stall at 2 a.m.
Free cook planner and log, on your device. USDA safety temps built in, kept separate from pitmaster targets — always.
Brisket, pork butt, ribs (3-2-1 or hot & fast), chicken, turkey. Set the weight and when you want to eat. That's the whole form.
The plan renders backward from dinner: trim Friday 10:55 PM, fire at 11:55, wrap window mid-morning, resting by 3:40. Cross-midnight cooks handled correctly.
Live mode walks the phases with you. Tap temps and notes into a timestamped log — and when it's over, write the one line that makes the next cook better.
Brisket, pork butt, 3-2-1 ribs, hot & fast ribs, spatchcock chicken, whole turkey — each with real per-pound planning bands and its own rest window. Estimates labeled as estimates.
The signature. Phases as chalked slats on a slate board — fire, smoke, wrap window with its internal-temp waypoint, rest, slice. Screenshot it for the group chat.
Check off phases as they happen. Log internal temps and notes with one tap — each entry timestamped, so 2 a.m. decisions leave a paper trail you can learn from.
Every cook saved with a rating and "what I'd do differently." Lay two briskets side by side and see exactly what changed. Export the whole book — it's yours.
A 65-card graded knowledge base — USDA FSIS, university meat science, labeled practitioner doctrine, six myth-debunks. Every answer cites its source and grade. Free, offline.
USDA safety floors and pitmaster doneness targets wear different badges on every screen. Poultry 165°F. Ground 160°F. Whole-muscle 145°F + 3-minute rest. Non-negotiable.
Poultry 165°F. Ground meats 160°F. Whole-muscle beef, pork & lamb 145°F + 3-minute rest. Danger zone 40–140°F — 2-hour rule out of refrigeration, 4 hours cumulative maximum. These come from USDA FSIS and the FDA Food Code, and PitSlate never rounds them down.
A brisket is safe at 145°F and tough as a boot — collagen doesn't melt into gelatin until it spends hours far higher. Probe-tender near ~203°F for brisket, 195–205°F for pork butt, the bend test for ribs. Different job, different badge, never confused with the floor.
PitSlate gives food-safety guidance sourced from USDA FSIS, but it is not a food-safety authority — always verify temperatures with a calibrated thermometer, and when in doubt, follow USDA.
I'm Mike. I did the math on a legal pad — "if we eat at six, when do I light the fire?" — got it wrong, and pulled a leathery flat off the pit while everyone stood around hungry. The next cook I stood in the yard at 2 a.m. searching "why did my brisket stop climbing" for the third time in a year, because I never wrote down what worked.
PitSlate is the tool I wish I'd had: the whole day scheduled backward from dinner, a log that remembers, and a coach that cites its sources instead of guessing. It keeps the USDA safety floor and the pitmaster target as two separate numbers — because confusing them is how people get hurt. Your cooks stay on your device. That's the whole promise.
— Mike, Apps 4 That
Planning a 2 a.m. fire? Get your back-timed schedule and cook-day reminders in your inbox, so the plan's handy when your phone's greasy and the yard is dark.
Serious cook logging has been locked to $250 thermometer rigs. Your plan and your history shouldn't require new hardware.
Less than the cost of one packer brisket, for the log that stops you ruining the next one.
No. PitSlate repeats USDA FSIS and FDA Food Code guidance faithfully — 165°F poultry, 160°F ground, 145°F + 3-minute rest whole-muscle, the 40–140°F danger zone — and clearly separates those floors from pitmaster doneness targets. But it's an informational tool: verify with a calibrated thermometer and follow USDA when anything conflicts.
No, and anyone who promises that is selling something. Plans use honest per-pound bands, then bank a rest/hold buffer precisely because big cuts finish on their own schedule. The plan gets you close; the probe makes the call; live cook mode keeps the record.
No. PitSlate works with the thermometer you already own — you tap temps into the log yourself. That's deliberate: your plan and history shouldn't be locked to one brand of hardware. (If you have a fancy rig, great — PitSlate rides alongside it.)
Not in v1 — the timeline is on-screen, and the app is built to work offline all night. Notifications are the very next thing on the list (v1.5). For overnight cooks today, most pitmasters set a phone alarm for the wrap window the slate shows.
On your device, in your browser's local storage — cooks, notes, temps, all of it. The only things that ever touch a server: optional AI Pitmaster questions (your question plus the retrieved cards — never your cook history), and checkout via Stripe. The free coach never makes a network call.
Because every card shows its work: USDA FSIS citations for safety (grade A), university meat science and test-backed practitioner science for technique (grade B), and honestly-labeled practitioner consensus (grade C) for craft doctrine. No invented studies, no invented numbers — and six famous myths debunked by name.
Meat plus eat time equals your whole day, scheduled. Under two minutes, free, on your device.