Unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast. There isn't much in the way of controlled production of smoke with the stock chip loader. Some woods aren't particularly offensive in large doses I used peach chips before I came up with my own smoke production system. These chips are commonly available, (at Meijer around here, but I bet Wallyworld sells them everywhere) and even though they were pretty intensely smoky smelling, the meat wasn't bitter as it would have been with an equivalent dose of hickory or mesquite).
Those of us who use MESs a lot have come to rely on alternate smoke generation strategies. The Amazn tray or tube has a big following and some spectacular results (probably >1000 threads on this site) Others of us have come up with other ways to address the issue.
If you're going to use the stock chip loader, small, frequent additions of dry chips are the way to go. soaking just makes a bunch of steam until the chips dry out and burn anyway. If you're willing to commit to going out and putting in a half loader of chips every 20 minutes and cleaning out the ash tray every 2-3 hrs, you can make some really good meat without covering everything with creosote. If you try to keep it stuffed full, it will make too much smoke for a while, just right for another while, and too little as the charcoal starts a fire (which will ultimately burn out the cabinet around the chip loader hole), you just get black yuck all over everything and the fire makes your temps unstable.
