Hey newbie2, congrats on the new
WSM!
There are a ton of ways you can set up your charcoal and wood. You'll hear them all here. Personally, I take the simple and lazy approach.
I generally don't add any wood chunks during a smoke due to the way I load my
WSM.
1. I put down a single layer of charcoal.
2. I put 3-4 fist size chunks of wood. If I have a bunch of little pieces I'll bunch them together to make a fist sized pile.
3. I fill the charcoal ring with charcoal burying the wood.
4. I add another 3-4 pieces of wood in a circle.
5. I dump hot charcoal in the center of the smoke ring and spread them out a little so they are just touching the wood.
6. Let the white/grey smoke start to diminish and hits of blue to appear before adding the meat. Then let the
WSM do it's thang!
At the end of a smoke I snuff out the charcoal by closing all the vents. Next time I stir the ashes off the used charcoal, empty them the ashes if necessary, then consider the used charcoal my first layer and repeat the above process.