VOCs in smoking wood?

Botch

I've been slowly reading through Eric Mitchell's Smoke it like a Pro.  His general method is to light the fire, let it sneak up on the target temp, and then add his smoking wood (he uses chunks) and then waiting for the smoke to clear from the smoking wood.  Then he adds the food.
First time I've heard of doing this, and I doubt I could do it as (up until now) I've only used chips.  Anyone else do this?  

xiphoid007

I've always heard and read that you need to let the white smoke you get when you first add the wood calm down to the thin blue smoke that is best for smoking. I've heard this referred to as a clean fire. If you come down the fire too quickly and get white smoke, this is a dirty fire. Aaron Franklin has a great video on this.

I can't say for sure if this white smoke contains VOC's, but I would assume so. I know it contains creosote which is not good tasting. 

Thus white smoke is bad, thin blue is good. In my limited experience this is what I've learned.

Botch

xiphoid007 said:

I've always heard and read that you need to let the white smoke you get when you first add the wood calm down to the thin blue smoke that is best for smoking. I've heard this referred to as a clean fire. 

Yes, I've always done this for the lump, but never for the smoking wood before.  

Durangler

Thin blue is what your looking for. However, it's a pain in the a** to pull the platesetter to add wood chunks for indirect Q'ing. Thus I just mix in chunks with the lump & let it come to temp.

xiphoid007

I get my temp started, then throw in the indirect rig (I use the AR) after some chunks of wood. Once the smoke is pure, on goes the meat. My wife is very sensitive to bad smoke, so she keeps me honest. I use OO charcoal too which is nice and clean.