Rookie with WSM and too much white smoke

matty gunns said:

Hey everybody. So basically i used my wsm to smoke a pork butt without seasoning the smoker first. I got too much smoke in my pork butt but overall it wasnt a terrible first try. Now im trying to season my smoker following harry soo guidelines. Question is i seem to be seeing too much white smoke. I have bacon on there now and i startup with the minion method. Once my chimney is ready i dump the coals right in the middle wait a few minutes and then assemble the smoker. Im foiling and smoking with an empty water pan. Temp will run very hot and then come down and thats when i add the meat and the wood (hickory). This is only my 3rd smoke maybe im just getting the kinks out but i have a feeling it could be the hickory im using.

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Matty try putting less wood and put it in with the charcoal,you do not have to add the wood as you go.I like to dump a small amount of lit coals on the outer edge,helps maintaining the lower temps I want

Richie

You want to wait until the charcoal bed is stable and the white smoke has pretty much stopped before putting on the meat.  Not unusual to wait 20 to 30 minutes.  Top vent open 100% all the time, and control heat with the bottom vents only.  Remember any vent change will take about 5 minutes to stabilize in the pit so if you change a vent, wait 5 to 10 minutes before evaluating if you need to make any further changes.  If you don't you will be chasing a yo-yo temp all night long.  Let the WSM do what it's designed to.

As to wood, no more than 3 fist sized or smaller chunks of your smoke wood are plenty.  The smoke wood should be fully lit and a hot coal before putting the meat on.

Also just because you don't really see smoke does not mean it is not flavoring the meat.  The white smoke has an acrid flavor and a lot of creosote.  You really don't want white smoke.  Also if you add charcoal to the pit, the binder in the brickettes also produces white smoke until the charcoal gets lit.  Try to load the fire ring with as mush charcoal as you need to get the entire smoke done.  There are some long 22-24 hour smokes that will probably require a reload.  I've taken to pushing all the lit into a bunch on one side of the ring and pouring more in around it basically doing a minion relight on very long smokes.

Good info, I am buying a weber kettle this week. It's been years since I used a charcoal grill.