diff --git a/local/scripts/build-redbear.sh b/local/scripts/build-redbear.sh
index 88c20c6b73..c03e1b44a9 100755
--- a/local/scripts/build-redbear.sh
+++ b/local/scripts/build-redbear.sh
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ PROJECT_ROOT="$(cd "$SCRIPT_DIR/../.." && pwd)"
 # REDBEAR_VERSION (which tracks the OS release derived from the git branch).
 # Starts at 1.0 and is bumped AUTOMATICALLY on every change by the pre-commit
 # git hook (local/scripts/bump-build-version.sh); do not edit the minor by hand.
-BUILD_REDBEAR_VERSION="1.9"
+BUILD_REDBEAR_VERSION="1.10"
 
 # ── Colorized output ──────────────────────────────────
 # Enabled only on a TTY with NO_COLOR unset, so redirected build logs and CI
@@ -303,9 +303,16 @@ CONFIG="redbear-full"
 JOBS="${JOBS:-$(nproc)}"
 # Dep-level parallel recipe cooking: cook this many independent (same-level)
 # recipes at once. The make-job budget (JOBS) is divided across the concurrent
-# cooks per level, so lone heavyweight recipes still get the full -j. Default to
-# a quarter of JOBS (min 1); override with COOKBOOK_COOK_JOBS=1 to force serial.
-COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT=$(( JOBS / 4 )); [ "$COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT" -lt 1 ] && COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT=1
+# cooks per level, so total compile parallelism stays ~JOBS (RAM stays bounded to
+# roughly a serial -j${JOBS} build) while the extra recipe-concurrency fills the
+# cores left idle during configure/link/small-file phases.
+#
+# Default to JOBS/2: this keeps per-recipe make jobs >= 2 (so a busy level still
+# uses the whole -j${JOBS} budget), while giving enough recipe-concurrency to
+# saturate the machine. Going higher (e.g. JOBS/1) would floor per-recipe jobs to
+# 1 and leave part of the budget unused on large levels. Override with
+# COOKBOOK_COOK_JOBS=1 to force serial, or any value to tune.
+COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT=$(( JOBS / 2 )); [ "$COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT" -lt 1 ] && COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT=1
 export COOKBOOK_COOK_JOBS="${COOKBOOK_COOK_JOBS:-$COOK_JOBS_DEFAULT}"
 APPLY_PATCHES="${APPLY_PATCHES:-1}"
 NO_CACHE=0