Gotcha, Don, and I can understand you wanting to use a lot of wood. By the way, especially being from Texas, there are those that will tell you that you can't get the right smoke flavor off a charcoal smoker, and that you need a stickburner that actually burns wood with a flame. However, although I admit that the flavor is different, I think that the number of contests won by folks using charcoal smokers puts that notion to rest.
There are some things that will help you in getting more smoke flavor though, without getting much bad smoke and creosote. I put the rub on ahead of time so the meat will have enough time to start to "sweating" in the fridge, but put the meat on cold. I'm not a food scientist, but I understand that wet and cold meat will take the smoke better. Also, as you probably know, foiling will not only prevent further smoking, but dilute smoke flavor already adsorbed, so if you do, don't do it too early. One other thing that comes to mind is that I don't get near as much smoke flavor when smoking in pans on my bullets, or kettles, for that matter. (I'll leave that to Myron Mixon and his big offset.) For the wood, I like to use hardwoods like hickory or oak a lot. Although I use fruitwoods and pecan as well, especially with poultry and ribs, the hardwoods smoke a lot longer. I want a gentle wisp of smoke that just keeps on coming from the different wood chunks I have buried in the ring around the perimeter, and not all my wood chunks burning up at once. This one of the cool things about the Minion method. Hope that helps, and don't sweat the bad smoke. Sort of like fishing and hunting, if there was nothing to learn about smoking, it would get boring real quick.
