Yeah, pre-burn will work fine, or, you could make your own hardwood lump by heating up and burning in a low-oxygen environment, such as a loosely covered drum. I read about the process on here, or maybe someplace else on the net, but not too complicated. The benefits of this method vs pre-burn is you have more fuel left to actually cook with, and, it's just a matter of adding fuel as needed instead messing with pre-burning every time you fire up for a smoke...you have to get some wood burned down to coals in advance, so you have to time your burns, or just keep a fire burning the whole time.
Eric