Any time you are firing up a grill, you should be cooking sweet corn on it. Sure, it takes up alot of space. But you can do it while the coals are still to hot to cook anything else. And the result is sublime: perfectly steamed ears with just a hint of smokiness. If you don’t eat it all that night, the leftover corn can be cut off the cobs (to save space in the fridge) and used in other dishes where its sweet and smoky flavor will do wonders.
There are just a few tricks to success, but they are critical:
1) Do not shuck the corn! Grilling corn without the husk will render it dry, chewy, and cook all the sugar out of it. Snapping the inedible stem off the end will save grill space — it may take a layer or two of outer leaves with it.
2) Remove the silk by yanking it out. Otherwise it will catch on fire and act like a fuse, causing your corn to burn. You should also remove any leaf tips that might hang down into the fire.
3) Soak the ears in water. Ideally you should drop them in a bucket or bowl and leave them for 10 minutes or so, but in a pinch spraying them with a garden hose will do the trick. This is crucial to keeping the husk from catching on fire.
4) Cook over very hot coals. It takes a lot of heat to steam the corn inside the husks, so if you wait until the coals have cooled, you can end up with raw corn inside nicely-browned husks.
5) Turn each ear four times. You want the outer leaves of the husk to be brown or black on all sides. Otherwise you may end up with ears that are cooked on one side and raw on the other.
6) When done, leave the corn in the husk until just before you serve it. It will stay warm that way. If you have lots more grilling to do, you can move the ears to the edges to keep them warm longer.