Quote Originally Posted by Chief Arrowhead View Post
Competition teams will burn the charcoal in a chimney before adding to cancel the bad smoke, but honestly I've never tasted it (acrid) in my personal home cooks unless the wood chunks are burnt out/missing.
hmmm - I also use a chimney to start the coals so they are burning hot as soon as I put them in the smoker. I then added two pieces of apple wood about the size that would sit in the palm of your hand. I let them burn for 5 min or so until it seemed the white smoke was gone and then added the ribs and shut the smoker.

But white smoke continued to pour out of the top vent for the better part of an hour. I'm told this is a bad thing and for our taste they were definitely too smoky. Someone told me they would let the wood burn longer before they added the meat and that you shouldn't see a lot of white smoke coming out of the smoker.