An air/fuel gauge is a very good idea.
Without it, here's my recommendation. Please read:
http://www.tuningmadeeasy.com/.../spark-plug-reading/
It's important to find out if the plug is fouled because it's too cold or because it lives in a too rich environment, of course due to carb adjustment. I think your plugs are fine if they don't look black after high speed run, I think your idle circuit is too rich. And if I'm right and you just put in hotter plugs, you risk burning plugs or something worse at high rpm.
There's a lot details to this, please read my link. Getting it wrong could be costly. The good news is that it might just be turning the idle mixture screws in 1/8. Adjusting that is also on my web page
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