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Good afternoon and welcome to the forum, from a cloudy, cool and rainy looking day here in East Texas, and the best site on the web. Lots of great people with tons of information on just about everything.
IMO the answer to your question is no...at least not visible smoke.
Here are my observations about my Rec Tec. I assume your Mini will work similarly. My RT680, especially at lower cooking temps, seems to have a smoke cycle. Here's what I mean by that...At a set temp of, say 225*, every few minutes, I'll see rolling smoke coming from the RT...then, after a few more minutes, less and less smoke until there is almost no visible smoke at all. Then that cycle will repeat. The higher my set temp, the less obvious this cycle becomes. At lower set temps, the cooker burns fuel less efficiently, producing more visible smoke. At higher temp settings, the cooker burns hotter and cleaner, producing less visible smoke. I'm using the word "visible", because it's important to remember that just because you can't see the smoke, doesn't mean your cooker isn't making any. The best smoke, which around here is referred to as TBS, is smoke you can barely see...or can't see at all. Next time you don't see any smoke coming from your stack, do this: put your nose over or near the exhaust, and give a sniff. I'll bet you'll smell smoke, even if you don't see it.
Can't say it's normal...I've never cooked on a Mini, but I've never had such a difference on my 680. I'd suggest giving their CS line a call and see what they have to say. They can probably give you some suggestions for evening out those temps.
Hi Bandit, in my intitial "burn in" a few days ago on my new mini, temp. Set at400*, indicated very close to 400 +\- few degrees but wired temp. Probe on right side of grill said around 15 degrees lower. Not sure if this is a normal cool spot.