Grilling over live coals

How to tell it is going right

• The fire was ready before the food was: coals evenly covered in grey ash with no flames licking through and no raw smoke coming off, and a hot zone and a cooler one both available.
• The grate was hot and clean when the food landed, and the food released cleanly from it when the time came to turn rather than tearing away.
• Marks are browned, not burnt: deep colour where the metal touched, with no carbon flaking off and no soot transferred onto the food.
• The interior reaches its target with a thin gradient, not charred outside and cold within, and not driven through by a flare-up.
• What comes off the fire smells of fire and food only: no raw wood smoke, no fuel, nothing acrid at the back of the nose.

Where it goes wrong It went on over live flames instead of settled coals, so the outside charred bitter in the flare-ups while the middle stayed cold, and everything on the plate tastes of soot.