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COBB BARBEQUE
This is a barbeque with a difference. Deep breath……. It doesn’t carbonise the food! It doesn’t make smoke! It doesn’t get hot on the outside! It doesn’t use tons of charcoal! You can use it indoors! It can roast a chicken and bake bread! You can even stick a wok on top and use it to stir-fry! OK that’s a few more than one I admit.
The Cobb gets it’s name from the fuel it was designed to use, dried corn cobs. An industrial designer called Ken Hall came up with the idea whilst trying to design a cooker for folk in South Africa’s underprivileged areas and he did a pretty good job! It is designed to run on dried corn cobs (tons of these around in SA) so the fuel is free and it can cook a meal for four people using just a few. Some of the money from sales is now diverted to production of a low cost eco-cobb, with the intention of distributing it free throughout the third world.
Well yes, and very well. The recommended fuel is a product called heat
beads, charcoal briquettes, although we have also used normal lump wood charcoal, which works just as well. We bought ours last April and it’s been great although the design has been improved now, so references to differences between ours and the new one are dotted through this op.
Base Which has rubber feet and is insulated to allow you to move it around whilst cooking.
Flavour Well or Moat Which holds water, wine or beer to flavour the food and keep it moist. On newer model than mine this now pops out to make it easier to clean
Fire Chamber Where you place the firelighters and the light the fire.
Fire Grid Charcoal goes on top of this and it also has little legs which will hold a pan on the new model.
Grill On which you place your food, stainless steel on mine but non-stick on new ones. This convex plate is solid in the centre with holes at the edge which drain the fat off into the moat of the flavour well which means that no fat drips into the fire hence no clouds of smoke whilst cooking,
Lid To keep it all nice and hot, about 400 degrees in fact! This also has a coating on it, which, despite it being made from spunaluminium means you can touch it and not get burnt.
Size The whole thing is 12” in diameter and will cook a BBQ for four (unless you’re a greedy sod like me who needs more food than average)
Well if it all sounds a little complicated, don’t worry it’s very simple. Everything fits together easily. Take out the grill using the handle provided and inside the well is the fire grid and chamber. Lift out the grid, out a couple of fire lighters in the chamber and out the grid back on top, then stick half a dozen briquettes or a handful (250g) of charcoal on top of the grid, drop a match in and leave it for twenty minutes or so. This bit needs to be done outdoors and NOT in a tent or kitchen! Once the charcoal is nice and hot you can put the grill back on along with the lid and leave it to heat for a few more minutes and it’s ready to go! With this amount of charcoal it will cook for two hours or so but stay hot enough to warm things for another 3-4 hours but if it cools it’s easy to add more charcoal and get it going again.
That’s for normal barbequing, but with the Cobb you have a BBQ a mini oven and smoker. Fish can be smoked very nicely by putting damp wood chips in the well around the base of the inner chamber or as mentioned before, you can use this to add moisture and flavour by donating a little beer or wine (about 8 fl oz). If you want more smoke, stick the woodchips on the charcoal but it will flare up if you do this so beware! You can also cook vegetables like new potatoes and carrots in here. Just wrap them in foil and drop them in the well with the beer or wine (or water if you must!) and leave them to steam.
This is the only thing I’d trust to cook a whole chicken outdoors, takes abut two hours to cook a 3lb which is about the biggest you could fit on there but it does a great job and the veg is sitting underneath steaming away at the same time. We’ve also cooked pizza on it! The website also has a load of imaginative recipes for you to try out, useful if like me, your first thought after deciding to have a barby is to get the burgers out!
Unlike a normal BBQ it does take more cleaning. The grill is easy enough but the flavour well is tricky, however on the new ones this pops out so will be easier to manage. The outside gets a wipe over, tip out the ash and put it back together again.
A few camping shops stock these but they are now available online from http://www.cobbuk.com/ for £59.95 plus 3.95 P+P and there is also a carry bag available for another £9.95 which would be useful to stop it getting knocked around and as it only weighs in at 8.5lbs, you can carry it off on trips and cook anywhere you like!
Sounds Brilliant! is it worth saving up my corn cobs to burn in it? I usually empty the corn off very efficiently and use no butter so it dries nicely... if so, it might be worth buying - I really LOVE corn-on-the-cob! and the idea of cooking chicken sounds great too - there was a bar-b-cue in the city centre of Wolverhampton just over a week ago outside our "LOVED" ROADSHOW bus Friday night and it took FOREVER for the marinated chicken pieces to cook - and then they were not cooking very well through - would have done better with this, methinks... ≈≈≈≈{; -)-{{:::::|||||<
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05.12.2005 08:13
Looking for ma barbecue for a Christmas present. This sounds great!
13.09.2004 18:21
Sounds Brilliant! is it worth saving up my corn cobs to burn in it? I usually empty the corn off very efficiently and use no butter so it dries nicely... if so, it might be worth buying - I really LOVE corn-on-the-cob! and the idea of cooking chicken sounds great too - there was a bar-b-cue in the city centre of Wolverhampton just over a week ago outside our "LOVED" ROADSHOW bus Friday night and it took FOREVER for the marinated chicken pieces to cook - and then they were not cooking very well through - would have done better with this, methinks... ≈≈≈≈{; -)-{{:::::|||||<
19.07.2004 20:20
Looking to buy one of these and your review made my decision even easier - thanks