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I dry smoke (no water) in my WSM, so here's what I do. All vents full open. I call this the "I don't want to think too hard about it" method.
1. Fill the fire ring about half way with cold briquettes.
2. Throw down about 6-8 good fist sized chunks of wood of your choosing.
3. Add more cold briquettes to roughly cover the wood to the top of the fire ring. There will still be pieces of wood exposed, but don't worry about it.
4. Add a full chimney of hot briquettes to the top of the cold charcoal and wood. Use long BBQ tongs to evenly spread the pieces over the charcoal.
5. For a high temp smoke (300-350F), leave the WSM unassembled for fifteen minutes to allow the hot charcoal to transfer maximum heat to the cold charcoal and start the wood charring.
6. Assemble the WSM and wait for hints of blue smoke to appear.
Everything would work for 275F chamber temp, just drop the amount of briquettes in the chimney to 1/2 to 2/3 full.
Why bury the wood? The hot charcoal on top will pre-heat the cold wood and char it more effectively. You get a cleaner burn that lasts a little longer.
I've got two untrimmed racks of spare ribs in the WSM right now with hickory. About 5.5 lbs each. 275F chamber temp and I used about 2/3's of a chimney on the cold charcoal and wood. Been on about three hours. There's no blue smoke at all coming out of the top vent, but whiff your hand through the exhaust air and there's such a wonderful smell of the wood.