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 We have cobb and think it's a great bit of kit, we have had it about 2 months and have used it every weekend mainly in the back garden .

 Things we have cooked

    Whole chicken,  spatch cocked chicken, spatch cocked duck, steak, spare ribs, and smoked trout the one in the recipe book  and every thing has come out GREAT   also cooked some scones that came out superb as well.

      Just bought a cadac safari chef today, more wonderful grub coming up.

David

Hi folk's  smoked trout just reminded me moppetsdad, you can actually smoke stuff yourself on the cobb, i just use a small tin can (think it had pat'e in it, any way it was smaller than a small b/bean can) get your self some smoking chip's (beech or oak are good) fill the tin then empty into a bowl & soak for 1/2 hr drain off the water & put back in the tin & place them on the hot cobbles or briquette's you may have to experiment to get the smokiness that suit's you but you will soon get the hang of it.

   happy smoking!!  regard's  bikermike.

A quick update from me. Used our Cobb for the first time last night and am really impressed. The food tasted great. I made the mistake of using only half a cobblestone though (had read somewhere that you could save money by breaking them in half and using just half at a time). That turned out to be a big mistake - not hot enough and took 40 mins to cook sausage, bacon and egg!

I managed to get a bag of heat beads in our local Waitrose but haven't tried them yet. They ended up costing me £50 cos I couldn't resist all the other yummy stuff I had to pass to get to the barbecue aisle

Am going to try a roast tonight

We were forunate that a friend bought a Cobb last year for home use then decided she couldn't be bothered with it as it looked too complicated. Out of the blue she very kindly gave it to use refusing to take any money! We dropped her a gift and some photos of us using it whilst away. We've found it very good. Easy to use and easy to clean if you do it soon after use/cool down. We dont use the cobblestones. We find normal (pebble) charcoal works fine for us. One or two firelighters, a few coals and 15 mins later you are ready to go which is plenty quick enogh for us. They get plenty hot enough for long enough. As said a little mess with the ash, but you soon work an easy cleaning routine out so that doesnt matter. TBH as its so convenient we've used it at home a gew times in preference to the bbq in the garden as it makes a better job of cooking the food!

Quote: Originally posted by kingy99 on 28/8/2009

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We dont use the cobblestones. We find normal (pebble) charcoal works fine for us. One or two firelighters, a few coals and 15 mins later you are ready to go which is plenty quick enogh for us. They get plenty hot enough for long enough. As said a little mess with the ash, but you soon work an easy cleaning routine out so that doesnt matter.

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I'm not very impressed with the cobblestones and certainly don't think they're worth the cost. I used another one last night instead of the heat beads as I wanted it to be ready quickly (I don't get home from work until 6.15pm so knew we'd be eating late as it was a roast). I was trying to do a chicken but it still wasn't done after two hours and the cobblestone ran out. I ended up finishing it off in the oven! Not only that, but because it spits so much when the coating is burning off, I ended up with bits of ash in the moat (where I wanted to cook my veg) so had the lovely task of trying to get tiny bits of ash out of a boiling hot moat - not pleasant.

So I know now not to use the cobblestone if I intend using the moat or if I want to cook a chicken!

Will try the heat beads tonight with some burgers. Hopefully they won't have the same ash problem.

We used ours for the first time last week whilst in north norfolk... wow.

We found the cobb really was as good as they say... now back home we are still cooking jacket spuds on them, yum yum.

We found as another poster said, they cook better with a kebab skewer through the middle as the metal heats from the inside... failing that a clean stainless tent peg works just as well!

Simply skewer the spud and poke the tent peg through one of the griddles holes to keep away from the griddle surface... hey presto great smelling & nice and crispy jacket spuds.