Lack of smoke taste

Welcome!

How low are you placing your chunks? It could be possible that the chunks are too low in the lump and don't even have a chance to ignite 

Smoke is more complicated that you’d think. White billowing smoke doesn’t taste good, I like adding lots of chunks of wood at the bottom of my KAB and then filling with charcoal, I put the meat on once the smoke is clear blue 

Have you tried spritzing your meat with water?  This helps the bark form and allows more smoke to penetrate the meat.... if the outside dries up you can smoke all you want but no more flavour will get into your food. 

Lastly, resting the meat helps the smoke flavour set. I wrap larger proteins and let them rest. 

If none of this helps, try a different brand of charcoal as they all have their own smoke profile and you might just be missing that 

I used to have the same perception. 1. Try pecan or post oak chunks, baseball sized. Mix in with the lump in different levels. Light your fire only in 1 spot and wait till about a baseball sized amt is burning before adding place setter. 2. Try adding a low profile (cookie sheet height) water tray. Fill 75% full before adding grate.  3. Make sure you have a super coarse rub.  Meat church Holy cow is a good start. 4. Use fogo charcoal. Flavor profile is VERY different from Royal Oak. 5. As stated, spritz meat with apple juice right before smoking. Dont saturate, just wet it. 6. Longer meat cooks the smoker it gets. Cook low and slow vs fast and hot. A lot of tech options to hold 225 forever. 

Mistakes: 1. Using chips vs chunks. They burn off too fast. 2. Not enough moisture. 3. Igniting too much charcoal to start. Those are things I noticed affect my flavor and smoke creation.

Experiment with different amounts of lump. Depending  on what you cook, a smaller fire has to burn hotter than a larger one to produce the same amount of heat. Smaller fire and higher chunk distribution might help match what you're used to.

I think you were mentioning this, but I’ve elevated with great success. The first few briskets I did, I got zero smoke ring. Fat side up. When I elevated it, smoke ring appeared and it was getting a bit too Smokey. Try doing that. My thought was like yours, that with a drip tray, not much smoke was getting to the bottom of the meat. I think that will solve it bc it did for me

Dwdude102 said:

I think you were mentioning this, but I’ve elevated with great success. The first few briskets I did, I got zero smoke ring. Fat side up. When I elevated it, smoke ring appeared and it was getting a bit too Smokey. Try doing that. My thought was like yours, that with a drip tray, not much smoke was getting to the bottom of the meat. I think that will solve it bc it did for me

This too.  Use a smaller profile tray. Also, consider trimming the fat substantially more than usual. I have some with FANTASTIC results and no loss to moisture. The smoke will penetrate much more.