Hey guys, I'm not new to smoking but I recently purchased a KK and I'm new to this forum. I'm also new to kamado style cooking in general. I've owned a few traditional smokers with offset fireboxes but have some questions about best practices on the KK. I've read through this board and I'm sure that these questions have already been addressed 100 times so please bare with me. If there is another thread that already discusses them, then just point me in the right direction.
Here we go...
I just smoked my first batch of ribs on Sunday. I was aiming for a 230 degree temp using lump charcoal and some soaked chunks of pecan and apple. I used a couple Weber starter cubes after filling up the charcoal basket. I barely cracked the damper and turned the top a 1/2 turn. All was well for a couple hours, then it bumped up to 260 quickly. I backed it off at the top but could never get it to come down from that. It held that temp through the rest of the smoke. Also, I couldn't really see much smoke coming out after a couple hours.
1. Is there a better method to get smoke throughout the entire cook AND keep it under 250?
2. Do you typically have to add wood chunks throughout a 12-14 hour smoke? What's your best method for doing this?
3. Should I use less charcoal for low and slow? Would that make a difference in monitoring the heat?
4. Do you normally use the bottom damper or the top to primarily control the temp (or both)?