David, I think you hit the nail on the head. TOO MUCH WOOD, can come from overdoing the initial amount, or by continually feeding the box. I do think your 1st smoke on the CS would be far worse than just a simple overdoing the initial amount, acknowledging everyone's smoke profile preference is different. After Brian's (Pork Belly) post the other day it just hit me. After all the smokes that I have done in whatever brand of lazy Q smoker, I never paid a bit of attention to whether it turned to ashes or charcoal and I never had a bitter tasting piece of meat. So I just thought maybe we could gather some facts for us all to consider and if it's not necessary to do any extra things to the wood, let's take more pictures to share our hunks of goodness. To be forthcoming however, I did one time like you severely over smoke a skillet of beans. Try as I might, I could not doctor out that bitterness. For me, I think Brian's post hit me between the eyes and your post today David, finished it up for me that I will no longer worry about boating my chunks, but do commit to staying with a good source of wood and commit to taking more pictures and Posting them. Unless these poll questions dictate further study.
Not saying anyone here did but to blame the manufacturer is just not right. Those evil stick burners who don't like lazy Q do. Just kidding, if tending those stick burners is your thing, I'm all for you, they are not evil!
