grillin' with the flintstones...

Pain.  Cooking over a live wood fire is almost always better than cooking over charcoal, as long as it's good wood.  If you can build a good, wood fire in your grill -- which typically means a pretty good sized grill -- there are no advantages, only disadvantages, to cooking with direct contact to live coals. 

Good grilling is about temp control and fuel.  If you can control the first, it's all about the latter.  But fuel doesn't matter if you can't get doneness at least close. 

Cooking with direct contact will almost always burn your seasonings if they're any more complicated and fragile than salt and pepper -- so you're limited there as well.

BDL

Have you thought about trying a gaucho grill?  I once saw an amazing video with Steven Raichlen cooking huge beef ribs gaucho style but can't find it anymore.

Joey ,

Have you ever heard of cooking steak on a rock.

Place a rock large enough  ( fit the steak you wish to cook) on the spot where you will start a fire. Build a fire on top of that rock, let it burn until you get coal like pieces, brush the debris away in the middle  exposing the rock until the rock is swept clean. Place the steak directly on the hot rock and cook .

It is a great heat source for cooking.

Petals.

............steak on the rocks.....@ Bedrock

Cooking steak or meat for that matter is nothing new, in fact there are plenty restaurants that do it, especially to entertain the patrons. Old age came new again....

If anyone was put in survival mode, its a great alternative.

Ordo....never say never.....

Petals.

In my youth I've cooked many steaks on a large rock placed right next to a live fire. Not really to try to do it differently, but just because we didn't have a BBQ, we didn't have a great, and that was the only idea that seemed to make sense. No clean up necessary, a strong flavor of wood fire, and a better sear/sizzle than on a grate. Love it. Haven't done it in a while though. 

FF,

Its great if your camping and have no grill.....In the oldddddd days they had not grills, what did they use ? Sticks or rocks.

Petals.

Exactly. Me and my friends would go up in the hills, gather some stones in a circle, gather some wood and put it in the middle, start a big fire, and start playing guitar and sing etc... - when time came to eat, sausages would be threaded onto sticks, steaks slapped on some flat rocks. It is to this day some of my fondest food memories. 

When we had that "Guest Time" with Steven Raichlen I got turned on to trying this, so I tried it. I don't think I ever need to do it again. 

A friend gave me Francis Mallmann's "Seven Fires", which touches on old school grilling from Mallmann's youth in Patagonia.  The recipes are fine and all, but the best part are his 7 techniques for harnessing the power of fire.  They are all primitive versions of things we know; plancha, grill, wood oven, spit roasting and cooking on wood or in ash.  It's not 'caveman' cooking, but i think it's a fantastic compromise.

 Francis Mallmann's "Seven Fires" is an awesome book. Any one really into grilling or BBQ should have a copy.

Dave