Juice from meat extinguishing charcoals when grilling?

Question

I've never heard anyone else talk about this problem, but it seems to happen to me all the time:

I've been grilling regularly on a Webber charcoal grill for about a year. I have done my best to follow the instructions in the Webber manual about how to use the grill. I always use "the direct method" as I am usually cooking burgers or steaks, and frankly the results have not been too shabby so far.

But here's something I don't understand. When I cook a particularly juicy meat, especially a marinated meat, the juice always falls down on the charcoals, and it seems to extinguish many of them, at least partially. This wouldn't matter so much, except that it seems to lead to a big discrepancy in temperatures between the time I put the meat on until I flip, and then between the flip until the meat is ready. So if a recipe calls for 6 minutes on each side, after the first 6 minutes one side is super charred, and then I need to leave it on the second side for longer than 6 minutes to achieve the same. It's also painful because I often will grill a vegetable after the meat is done, and it always seems to take much longer than I expect.

Does anyone else have this problem? What should I do? I've seen drip pans at the store, but again the manual for my Webber suggests that these are only necessary when grilling by the indirect method.

Answer

As a fellow Webber'er and long time griller, I'm going to wager one of three things going on here:

• Your coals aren't hot enough. One of the biggest problems I see with folks and charcoal grills isn't waiting long enough for the coals. There's should be no visible flame and slightly more than half of the coals should be white. In a chimney starter - this is around 25 minutes for me. If you're using another method, YMMV.
• You don't have enough coals. If you've just got enough coals to spread a thin layer across your grill, then they won't keep heat well and they'll cool down fast. If the liquid hits them too much here, they won't heat back up well. They should be grouped together somewhat and generally a couple layers thick for best heat.
• There is waaaaay too much marinade still on your meat when it hits the grill. If its been soaked properly in the marinade, you don't need to have it still be gushing fluid when it hits the grill.

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