Letting charcoal stabilize before adding food?

I think the instruction that come with egg make it seem like you light the egg and cook.  I find this is true for grilling but low and slow I have it stabilized for at least a 1/2 hour before adding food.   Before adding the food I hold my hand above the top vent for ten to twenty seconds if it smells good I start cooking.

You have a few parts to your question so I will try and help the best I can. The reason you want to let it stabilize is to burn off the VOCs from the lump after initial lighting. The lump that burns throughout the cook will ignite slowly and should burn clean. For a low and slow cook it is a slow process. One load of lump in my large for a 225ish cook will last well over 20hrs. Lump is a different animal from briquettes, it is all natural and burns different and better. Even when I am grilling I let the egg sit for a bit at the temp I am cooking at just to burn off the VOCs.

As far as the wood for the "smoke" put it in the egg when you fill your lump prior to the cook. I always layer my wood and lump. Dump a little bit of lump in then add a small layer of the wood of your choice. Add another layer of lump then more wood. Do this process until you fill your firebox and you should be good. The lump will burn down slowly and the wood will ignite and burn throughout your cook. I have never added wood during a cook and I get great results. Note that it does not take a lot of wood for a smoke flavor, you can over do it in my opinion. Try this method when you do your brisket and you should be good. I have a 8lb flat on now and I am getting a good smoke flow and I am 3 hrs in.

I hope this answers your questions and I'm sure other people will chime in with their methods. Try them out and do whatever gives YOU the best results. Good luck on the cook!

Fist sized chunks are fine.

VoC's are volatile organic compounds.  They burn off at a fairly low temperature, so even if all the lump isn't lit yet, the firebox will be hot enough with a small fire to burn them off.

Different brands of lump tend to have different characteristics and some will take longer to burn clean than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_organic_compound

"Volatile" in general usage usually means that something is capable of burning.

But this is NOT AT ALL what it means in the phrase "volatile organic compound".  "Volatile" in this case means that the vapors readily and easily evaporate, and do so at room temperature.  Perfumes and colognes comprise volatile organic compounds.  Nothing is required to make volatile organic compounds evaporate or be released.

Which means it isn't the burning of the lump which releases the VOC's.  It is the mere presence of air around the lump which permits it.  If you poured out the lump in a pile on the ground and never lit it, the vast majority of VOC's would be lost in a short time.  VOC's are the smell you get when you open a brand new bag of lump.

The hot environment of a grill accelerates the release of VOCs. Just as adding heat to water allows it to evaporate (or eventually boil) faster, so does the heated air of the grill excite the VOC's and accelerate their evaporation.

Though there is arguably some amount of VOC's inside the lump, each piece of lump has so much surface area available to release the VOC's (including cracks and microscopic openings), that what little of the VOCs which remains in the lump is negligible compared to the whole.

So.

Opening the bag releases VOCs.  Pouring the lump exposes more surface area, releasing VOC's. The warmer the ambient temperature, the more VOC's are released.  Igniting some of the lump creates an even hotter environment, now with draft, which carries away more VOCs.

What little remains in the lump, if any, is of no consequence.

And the next day, the unburnt lump remaining will be virtually VOC-free.

There is a general misconception that "volatile" means the lump must burn for the VOC's to be rid.  This is fundamentally incorrect, and a confusion of the similar but differing definitions for "volatile".

Webers have most of the fuel lit, unless you are adding some on a long cook. Kamados have very little of the fuel lit which is why you do not add anything for a long cook. Air and heat in the lump pile reduce the VOCs within the first 30 to 60 minutes so that when the smoke smells good the food tastes good. 

Generally speaking BGE lump (made by Royal Oak) is considered middle of the road in most categories (VOCs, lightability, etc) - and perfectly acceptable to cook with.  You will probably need at least a solid 30 minutes to get it burning clean, though.

And if you haven't found this yet, here is more than you ever wanted to know:  http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lumpindexpage.htm?bag

I just fire it up and wait for the white smoke to clear. It's ready.

I don't mean to start anything, but the VOC's in the large amount that we are concerned with are not a product the remaining uncarbonized organic matter which exists in the lump.  VOCs are vapors, and they are not necessarily flammable (though many are).

The smell of gasoline is due to VOCs.  The Smell of perfume is from VOCs.

The most familiar example, and one which should illustrate that "volatile" has nothing to do with burning or flammability, is the smell from a freshly painted room.  Even latex paint, without mineral oils, has volatile organic compounds.  As do carpets.  In fact, "new car smell" is from volatile organic compounds.  These dissipate at normal ambient temperatures, and do not require burning to do so.

"Organic Compunds" means that it/they contain carbon, not that they are simply a "natural" thing (like wood).  Wood is organic, but it isn't an "organic compound" in the sense that is meant with "Volatile Organic Compound".

The uncarbonized organic matter in charcoal will burn, and the smoke from it will have within it its own VOCs as a byproduct, but the chemical taste prevalent in food cooked over charcoal which has not been allowed to chase off, evaporate (not "burn off", technically) its VOC's will have that flavor.

It's a complex combination of things, because bad chemical flavors can come from charcoal fires regardless of VOC's, if the fire is smouldering or burning poorly.

But the fundamental point remains: even with lump which survives unburnt after a cook, VOC's are virtually gone, eliminated. The lump itself does not need to burn in order to have its VOC's driven off.  And since that is the case, it is clear that the VOC's are not related to any remaining organic matter in the lump which has not fully carbonized.

The remaining organic matter may give off some VOC's when it burns, but it is minimal compared to the entrained VOC's which were created by the initial carbonizing (making the lump in the first place).

If you reuse the lump the next day, the unburnt lump will not require the same 20-30 minutes to clear itself of VOC's.

I would think you'd still have VOCs in decent amounts left over, but much of it would likely be gone. It would be in an enclosed environment, and not have much draft washing through it, like it does when there is a fire (which heat drives off even more), so I don't think it would be a case where you could light it and go.  You'd still have some to burn off.

I'm sure you still have some, but perhaps not as bad. 

A week old half filled bag of charcoal still smells VOC heavy, but not at all like when you first open it.

Okay, I follow.  Thanks, SenecaTY!

And I won't continue anything, but unconverted wood will continue to produce VOCs. Just not very much. Wood decomposition from lower heat creates, among other compounds, acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde auto ignites well below the burning temperature of carbon, so the acetaldehyde will most likely burn off if the lump has reached full heat, but not so much the formaldehyde or toluene, which ignite around the same temperature as carbon. See here: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-ignition-temperatures-d_171.html. In the case of unconverted wood, the VOCs are produced by further exposure to heat in the burning lump. The amount of residual VOC in unburnt lump is partially due to the fabrication process. It used to be common to just release them when the retort was opened, but I've read that in Missouri, some production facilities are burning methane to destroy the VOCs escaping from freshly made lump. If either process is less than perfect, the remaining charcoal, which is absorptive, will hold some VOCs. I don't know if all the VOCs will dissipate just from exposure to air flow. Nominally, VOCs do off gas at room temperature, but there is lots of variability depending on the compound.