Looking for tips to grill chicken legs and thighs over direct charcoal heat

For reference, grilling in the standard 22" Weber kettle grill using Kingsford briquettes and I'm lighting the charcoal in a standard Weber chimney starter.

I usually cook legs/thighs indirect with a sear before or after, but occasionally I'll see people who just grill them directly over coals by continually flipping them every few minutes until they're done. I want to do it this way, but every time I've tried this the charcoal ends up too hot and they have to retreat to the indirect side anyways. What are some ways I can keep the coals low enough in order to direct grill them? Some thoughts/plans:

-Going to do a 'wet' rub, making a paste out of oil and 8-10 spices. Might add an acid like vinegar or citrus juice too.

-I may be using too many coals to begin with or piling them up too densely when I grill, creating a super hot spot or two and the remainder of the spots too cool (I use those charcoal baskets a lot, which help with indirect grilling but not so much with direct I guess). I should probably spread them out very evenly and even space them out a bit. I'm thinking of starting with a 50-75% full chimney starter and spreading them out to about 1/2 or 2/3 the area of the 22" kettle grill.

-Keeping the lid on in between flips and keeping the bottom vents open about 50% may help control that direct heat. Any recommendations for the lid vents - fully open or another position?

Any other tips would be helpful. I'm mainly an indirect griller for everything, just searing in my super hot spot and letting things cook through on the indirect side, but I'd like to learn to grill directly over a controlled charcoal fire. Thanks for reading all this, I just want to get it right.



Submitted July 30, 2018 at 09:11AM by shortndumbmanchild https://ift.tt/2LIQAJh

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