Cooking steak on the grill

Here's a couple of hints:

1. Learn to judge doneness by feel. See this answer for a good guide to temp by feel.

2. Learn to judge grill temp by hand. Hold your hand palm down about 3-4 inches above the grill. If you can hold it there for a second or two, it's hot; 3-4 seconds is medium; 5-6 seconds is low.

3. Sear first. Start with a very hot grill. You want about two minutes per side. Do not move the steak while it is searing. Make sure you've given the grill grate at least 5 mins to heat up.

4. Use a two level fire. Once you've seared your steak, you want to finish cooking over a lower heat. Build a two level fire by putting the coals on one side of the grill rather than the whole thing. Then sear over the coals. Then move it to the other side to finish. If the grill isn't wide enough for a two level fire, you could try quenching the fire by cutting off air flow. That will cool it quickly.

5. Finish with the lid on. This helps cook by heating the air rather than just using direct heat.

6. Change your fuel. Stop using lighter fluid. Use a chimney instead. Hard lump charcoal is better than briquettes. It's easier to light, creates less left over, and burns hotter.

7. Rest your meat for a few minutes before eating. Be aware that it will continue to cook during this time, so you want to pull it off a little early.

8. Read up on cooking steak. There are a bunch of good questions on this site!

Does your charcoal grill have a lid? If so, your best bet is to make use of it. The lid allows for convection heat, and also controls the oxygen supply to your coals.

Your biggest enemy is flareups. So you will want to make use of a two-zone fire. Even in a smaller grill, this is possible. Keep the coals to one half of your charcoal grate, leaving the other half as a "cool" zone. Get your cooking grate nice and hot, and put your steaks on the hot side. Wait about 15-30 seconds, then spin your grate 180 degrees and put the lid on. This will let your steaks cook with indirect heat, and will also heat the other side of the cooking grate. After 2-4 minutes, flip the steaks back onto the hot side, wait 15-30 seconds, spin the grate, and put the lid back in place. After about another 2-4 minutes, your steak should be done. If your steak is thicker than an inch, add some time. If it's thinner, subtract some time. Use an instant read thermometer to be certain of the temperature you have achieved.

Also, don't forget to let your meat rest for 5-10 minutes, or nearly every drop of fluid will run out of your steak and onto your plate.

If you are doing a London Broil, you don't want to cook it much, probably to the low end of medium at the most. Otherwise, you will have a marinated piece of shoe.

I hope this gives you some guidance. It will take a little trial and error to get the hang of it, but this is a good basis with which to start.

Small grills are like small fish tanks... Less is not more... They leave less room for error and allow you fewer options that a nice big charcoal (or gas) grill would offer (for instance the ability to raise or lower the charcoal bed to adjust heat)

So with a small grill I would approach it this way:

if (you can't get the coals at least 6 inches from the coals)

{

1) Bake the steak @ 400 for about 5 minutes per inch
2) Use the grill to get a nice pretty sear and that "grill" taste
3) Only leave the steak on the grill for about 2 minutes per side

// Not having enough room between the coals will make it very tough to
// cook it through without burning the outside

} else {

1) Cook the steak over a moderately hot area of the grill... Cooking over the
   hottest spot will cause problems w/ burning (see above) and will put a bit of suit on
   your steak.
2) Flip every 3 minutes until steak has a lot of give (med-rare), little give (medium), 
   or very little give (med-well).
3) Note that feeling the "give" of the steak **with your fingers** is going to be more 
   accurate than poking it w/ tongs

}

Also 2 more tips:

1) The baking thing: This is a cheat, but it works WONDERFULLY w/ things like ribs as well... It's easier to control an oven then a cheap grill

2) If you want to err on the side of under done, you can heat some nice oven-safe ceramic plates in the oven and serve the under-done steak on that... Ruth's Chris does this and they charge a lot for it.

I think this is one of those things that's really just about practice. In my experience, the thermometer isn't very useful: I like my steaks rare, and the fine line between rare and raw is thin enough that the thermometer just doesn't cut it.

For me, for steak, I use the finger test. The doneness can be determined pretty reliably by how firm the meat is. If its squishy, it's raw, if its hard as a brick, it's well done. If you routinely check, you'll see that the difference in firmness is noticeable, even just from raw to rare.

With practice, this is useful even for chicken, though, for bone-in breasts, I'll use a thermometer, or I'll pre-cook them and then finish them on the grill.

Although I can't answer all of your questions, one of the tips that seems to have made a big difference in the evenness of the steaks I grill is from Alton Brown: turn the steak a quarter turn (90 degrees) halfway between flips.

I can honestly say that nothing has made a bigger difference in the quality, or the consistency, of my grilling than a dirt-cheap instant read thermometer. There's nothing more important than knowing your food's temperature. I would recommend a better-quality thermometer though, so you don't have to replace it once you realize what a tremendous difference it makes. You simply must have one before you start grilling tonight!

After you know (because of the thermometer) what a perfect steak looks and feels like, you'll naturally start to depend less on it. But until then, there's just no substitute.

Good luck!