New Cobb Pizza Stone / Bake and Review

This thing has been talked about for many months and has finally arrived and I purchased mine for $18.00 dollars plus shipping from Cobb Grill America a few weeks ago. 

It is designed to fit into the Cobb roasting rack on the Premier cooker. 

The new Cobb Pizza stone is about 7/16" thick with four feet and is a very nice accessory if it will do a good job with pizza. It is very wide and doesn't have very much room (7/16") between the stone and the dome cover for the heat to come up around it to cook the top of your bread and pizza. It measures about 10-1/2” in diameter. Everything about this new hearth stone is quality. 

Having done a lot of baking on this cooker, I knew it might be difficult to make this stone work as expected. To help with this first bake, I used my modified cooking grid which has 24 extra larger holes in the outside edge which will help getting some heat and smoke up around this very large stone to help cook the top of my bread and pizza. 

I started with the maximum amount (13) of all hardwood briquets for this first bake. 

I decided to use a dome extension for this first pizza attempt with the new Cobb hearth stone. I figured that to keep the bottom of the pizza from burning before the top got cooked, I needed to get my hearth stone up and a little higher from the fire. 

I let the stone heat up for about 20 minutes and then checked the temperature on the top of the stone and found it at about 270F degrees and I also had a probe in the top of the cooker and it was registering about the same, and I had an oven thermometer inside on the stone and it as well was about 270F degrees. That sure seemed low to me for baking but that was all I could get out of the cooker with this large stone. At this point, I was wondering if I could get a good pizza off of the cooker at this low temperature.

I made up a very simple pizza for this first try with just sauce, cheese, onions, bell peppers, and pepperoni.

Loaded my first pizza onto the Cobb and started the bake. 

It is done on the Cobb grill and ready to come off the cooker. It took way too long to bake at over double the time of a normal pizza bake as I couldn’t get enough heat up and around this very large hearth stone to bake a good pizza. 

I did get a pretty good pizza off of the cooker with the kinda crispy crust I wanted but this was a very simple pizza without much goodies on it. There is just no way this stone will work very well with the average pizza cook. It’s just too big in diameter for the cooker. I’ll bet the engineer designed the hearth stone on a Friday afternoon after spending too much time in a pub for lunch! 

I wouldn’t recommend this stone for the Cobb Premier but it is a great hearth stone which I will use in my small Big Green Egg and my small Weber kettle. 

A proper sized hearth stone for this Cobb Premier shouldn’t be over 9” in diameter and will produce wonderful pizza, breads, cobblers, pies, cakes, and other baked treats. 

More Pizza on the Cobb Grill

Baking on the Cobb Grill has been somewhat of a challenge to be able to get the top of anything cooked or baked before the bottom burns or overcooks to where it is not fit to eat. Just about got the problems solved and this is some pizza I have done a couple of days ago that came out quite well. 

This is one of the four I cooked in a row on the Cobb Grill and some of the comments I made after the cook. 

Added a few slices of jalapeño peppers and sprinkled on some parmesan cheese and my meal was ready.

I started by making up about two pounds of pizza dough for my four pizza's. The ingredients for the pizza's are as follows and I really loaded them up!

My homemade very spicy Italian sausage

Pepperoni

Onions

Bell Peppers

Smoked Red Peppers

Mushrooms

Mozzarella cheese

Pizza Sauce

Ready to go on the Cobb.

A couple more ready to be baked.

I used the larger charcoal basket that comes with the Cobb BBQ Kit. I loaded 22 all hardwood briquets into my Weber charcoal chimney and as soon as they were ready, I poured them into the Cobb grill.

I used the dome extension and the cooking grate that comes with the Cobb BBQ Kit and then also the roast rack and a 8-1/2" in diameter hearth stone for this bake. This IS the hot ticket for baking bread and pizza on the Cobb Grill.

I measured the hearth stone at the beginning of the cook with an IR thermometer and found it at about 410F degrees. I also measured the temperature at the top of the dome lid and it was running about 335-365F during the bake. While these numbers are not perfect, they are close enough to allow a fellow to make and bake a few nice pizza’s or a few loaves of hearth bread. 

One of the four pizza's about ready to come off of the cooker.

All four of the pizza’s done on this bake.

Ready to be cut and served.

About as good of a pizza you can make on any outside grill.

Portobello Pizza / Cobb Grill / Low Carb Treat

This is a nice treat and also low carb and fairly easy to make and bake on any size cooker or kitchen oven. 

The Ingredients for my cook were as follows:

3-4 Portobello Mushrooms

Pizza Sauce

Sliced black olives

Sliced bell peppers

Sliced onions

Pepperoni

Pound of Italian sausage

Mozzarella cheese

I cooked the sausage in advance and used a mellon ball tool to clean out the gills on the bottom of the mushrooms. 

Started with the sauce

Next, I added the sausage, the olives, onions, and bell peppers

Finished up by adding the cheese and pepperoni and they were ready for the grill. 

Placed the first three treats on the Cobb which I had running at about 325-350 degrees. Took about 15-18 minutes to get done. 

Done on the grill

I did the 4 mushrooms in two cooks or bakes

Served with some fruit and a Smoked Amber Ale and I had a great meal. 

Pizza Braid on the Cobb Grill

A nice treat...

Fairly easy to make and is just something different from a standard pizza. 

I made it about 15" long so I had to cut it in half and bake it in two bakes in the Cobb.

I made this first one with just sauce, cheese, and pepperoni but I will load up my next one with some sausage, onions, bell peppers and mushrooms.

Information on this bake can be found on the Pillsbury Web Site:  https://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/pepperoni-pizza-braid/1f1fd667-e2d2-41e5-969a-fd8d173a50b2

More Pizza on the Cobb Grill

Baking a nice pizza on the Cobb Premier Grill has been a little difficult to master and I have done about a dozen bakes trying to perfect it into something that would suit me. I think I have figured out a method that will produce a pretty good pie. 

Grill Setup:

I think the best pizza is always cooked on a hearth and I have found that the best size to use on this small grill is the smaller 8-1/2” stone. One of the biggest problems with pizza on this little cooker is getting the top done before the bottom burns. A larger stone than this will prevent the heated air from coming around this stone to get up into the dome where it can cook the top of the pie before the bottom burns. I have also placed this stone on the raised roasting rack to get it higher into the dome and away from the grid to allow more heated air to come out from under and get into the dome. I am using the grid from the Cobb BBQ Kit as this grid has many more slots that will allow more heat to  get out and around the hearth and up into the dome for the best results. I am also using the dome extension under my pizza setup which gets my fire a little farther away from my product. 

Fuel:

For most baking, I like to use the small Weber charcoal chimney to start my fire to be sure I have all the coals about the same before I pour them into the grill. 

While I much prefer lump charcoal for about all baking, I have found that it is much harder to control in this little cooker for high temp baking. However, it’s great for steaks and chops. 

I have found that about 22-24 briquets are about perfect for my pizza. I started with the Kingsford Professional but these so called all hardwood only briquets still have the borax stink agent on the outside to help them release from the dies and I don’t want that smell anywhere near my pizza. I found that they also produce way to much ash for this little grill and will block the incoming air to my fire. I am using the larger charcoal basket that comes with the Cobb BBQ KIt. 

I found that the best fuel for my application is the Wicked Good all hardwood charcoal briquets and this has worked quite well for all my recent bakes. They have a great sweet all wood burning smell and produce very little ash as compared to other briquets. 

Let’s make a pizza...

I like to make my pizza dough in my Dough Maker (bread machine on the dough only cycle) as it does a great job with this task and it is just super easy to use for this lazy old fellow. 

This first pizza has sauce, cheese, fresh basil leaves, and tomatoes and is on my little wooden peel and after the picture, I carried it out and baked it on the grill. 

About done on the grill.

This second pizza has sauce, cheese, pepperoni, onions, and bell peppers and is about done on the grill. 

The third pizza was the same as the second but I did add some hot peppers to this one. 

All three pies ready for serving. 

The pizza as served. 

Pizza Pot Pies / Cobb Grill

I did this pizza cook on my Cobb Grill this morning and it came out quite well. The pizza pot pie comes out similar to a deep dish pizza.

Ingredients:

1 pound of my homemade hot and spicy Italian sausage

can of pizza sauce

mozzarella cheese both slices and shredded 

sliced onions

sliced bell peppers

mushrooms

chopped fresh basil

some Italian spices

can of pizza dough

Browned up the sausage, onions, and bell peppers.

Drained the grease off and added the pizza sauce.

Pammed the bowls and lined the inside with several layers of cheese. Also added some shredded to the bottom of the bowls. 

Put the sausage mixture in the bowls and then covered the tops with more cheese. Then added some more chopped basil and the mushrooms.

Baked them about 30 minutes at about 325 degrees.

This is the big one just coming off of the little grill.

This is the one I tried to eat but could’t finish...just too much to eat at one time.

You just turn the bowls over, run a knife around the edges, and pull out the bowls. They kinda just plop onto your plate.

I’ll probably do these again....