Tried a new (for me) fuel source for the Cobb Cooker last weekend and burnt my bra.
No, I'm not a cross dresser and I wasn't wearing one.
I'm talking about the Cobb Bra I have been using successfully for a couple of years.
I decided to try the Cobb brand Cobble Stone when baking a loaf of bread.
Read the instructions on the packaging and proceeded (with a bit of difficulty) to ignite the fuel source by applying a naked flame to the centre of the "stone" as per the directions and after a couple minutes of perseverance the thing took off like a kiddie's sparkler and within another couple of minutes the stone was
well alight and glowing red. So far so good.
Placed the prepared dough (contained in a Willow brand silicon bread "tin") onto the top grill plate and placed the lid on.
Some 15 minutes later I noticed a quantity of smoke emanating from the cooker and lifted the lid to
check. All looked good and replaced the lid and proceeded with some social intercourse with my friends.
Another few minutes and black smoke was now evident and after lifting the lid and tapping the top of the loaf I decided that the bread was "ready".
Lifted the bread and container off of the grill plate and immediately noticed all was not
well with the silicon container. It had a hole in the bottom.
Bugger. Removed the loaf of bread from the remains of the silicon container and after inspecting same, considered the bread fit for human consumption with a little modification. I cut the blackened bottom of the bread off, disposed of the immortal remains of the silicon container and proceeded with some more conviviality until dinner time. The bread loaf still tasted OK.
The next morning, I disassembled the Cobb to clean it and after removing the internal bowl from the external container, noticed the Cobb Bra was somewhat "deteriorated".
On closer inspection, the extreme heat generated by a full Cobble Stone was a little too much for the Bra. The canvas was not affected but the trim around the top and bottom edge was heat warped in parts. I don't think the Bra is a throw away item at present and I will continue to leave it in place until I determine otherwise. I have always placed the bra to the inside wall of the external mesh bowl and this has worked successfully for the time I have had the Bra.
The reason for using the Bra was due to a loss of heat in "normal" outside conditions, causing a prolonged and uneven cooking time.
The lesson I learnt for this exercise?
1. The Cobble Stone is too bloody hot to use in the Cobb cooker as a complete fuel source.
2. Maybe I should chuck the rest of the Cobble Stones into a
camp fire as a fuel source sometime down the track and revert to my normal 7 heat bead fuel source which I have been successful with for aeons. (but they cost me big $.)
3. Perhaps a half of one stone may be more suitable at any one time.
I doubt I would bother with buying another lot of Cobble Stones for the shortened period of ignition time required before cooking. I haven't really had a problem waiting 20 minutes for the heat beats to be fully burning prior to cooking.
I certainly would not consider disposing of the Bra which I regard as "mandatory" for a successful cooking session with the mesh type Cobb Cooker.
I think I will experiment one more time with half a Cobble Stone and see how the cooking goes, but if this doesn't work I will revert to the previously successful Heat bead solution.
Interestingly, the only reason I used a full stone was because the instructions stated a "burn" time of 2 1/2 hours, against a time of 2 hours or so for 7 heat beads. I thought if I halved the disk I may not have sufficient heat/cooking time before I needed to replenish the fuel source.
Apart from this lesson in cooking life I have pretty
well determined that the Hillbilly
Camp oven is superior for baking bread than the Cobb Cooker anyway, but time and further experimentation will tell.
I would also state that the Heatbead brand of fuel source is more that adequate for the Cobb Cooker and no alternative is really worth trying.
Anyway, the remains of the bread went down very
well toasted the next morning with a runny egg plopped on top:-)
Bill.