My hubby would like to know if anyone knows a good way to control the temperature while cooking with charcoal?

I don't know where this came from - but it is from my notes - I hope it helps:

An adequately preheated grill is essential for good results. Preheating ensures that the grill grate is hot enough to sear the food, and can help loosen old debris. Always cover your grill during the preheating process. A charcoal grill will generally be ready about 30 minutes after the coals are lit. A gas grill will be ready after about 15 minutes of preheating.

To gauge the temperature of either a gas or charcoal grill, measure the amount of time you can comfortably hold your hand above the fire. Place your hand as close as possible to the grill without touching it. Use caution and care when doing this to prevent accidents and burns. Be sure that sleeves are pulled back, and that nothing flammable will approach the grill?you may want to remove jewelry. Count the number of seconds you can comfortably hold your hand there, being sure to pull your hand away before it hurts. Use the following chart as a guideline for grill temperature:

* Very hot (you can hold your hand just above grill level only 1 to 2 seconds)
* Hot (you can hold your hand just above grill level only 2 to 3 seconds)
* Medium-hot (you can hold your hand just above grill level only 3 to 4 seconds)
* Medium (you can hold your hand just above grill level only 4 to 5 seconds)
* Medium-low (you can hold your hand just above grill level only 5 to 6 seconds)
* Low (you can hold your hand just above grill level 6 to 7 seconds)

If the temp gauge is to hot i.e. 550 degrees how do I get the temp to cool down? I would also like to control the temp to keep it about 225 degrees for smoking meat.

that will require a lot of coal watching - moving the coals around and constatnly monitoring the temp

to "cool down" you need to take away some of the heat source - shuffling the coals, less coals, etc.

You know what I do? Probably not!

I used to cook right over the coals. But as I aged I realized that it isbetter to cook a little bit away from the coals. Then the food cooks slower, doesn't burn, and has a delicious grilled taste.