Learning to burn sticks...

This may have already been said...But I wanted to chime in anyways...Good luck and congratulations with your new cooker...Welcome to the ranks of the stick burners...

If too much smoke flavor is a problem for you...Make sure you are using the smallest preheated pieces of fruit wood possible...Keep the fire door open for a short time after you put them in to make sure they fire up not smolder...You can use more than one small piece at a time if necessary...the small wood will just burn faster and cleaner and allow you to run a hot clean burning fire at a lower cooking temp...then you can adjust the sizes as you learn more about your cooker and your desired cooking temp...I cook at 250* for most things and can get a clean burning fire...So it can be done...

Good Luck...embrace the journey...My .02

Me thinks you have never had BBQ off a stick burner. Of course cooking with all wood will produce more flavor it only stands to reason. You might try another wood for you main heat source like Oak which has a very mild flavor and season it in the beginning of the cook with Pecan or what ever for flavor then burn strictly Oak the rest of the cook. I run on Post oak and use Mesquite or Pecan the first few hrs. then Post oak till done. I find I get a more mellow flavor cooking at 300+ the fire burns cleaner the hotter it is. You also need to preheat your Splits so they combust quickly this will also help to keep the flavor lite.

cooken with wood

i`ve been bbq`n for over 30 years and what a long strange trip it`s been my first grill was your basic late 70`s early 80`s gasser when the guts woreout (halve just finished my IRONWORKER app. and it being the middle of reagonnomicks i could not buy a job) started to use charcoal in my gasser i then moved to chargriller offsets (from lowes) and started to smoke low and slow useing both charcoal and wood took awhile to learn to how to do it ruined quite a few meales whith oversmoke well after 4 or 5 chargrillers i was luckey enough to get a LANG60 fire mnagement is a required skill when useing a offset smoker use a good quality charcoal R.O. or stubbs i prefer to use bricket this will give you a good hot coal base to put your wood on which keeps down on white smoke and the oversmoked taste in no time you will master these skills and enjoy grate bbq

I guess I have a lot to learn, I am using a 15 year old Bandera, (stored inside), I have been smoking on a 10 ton load of hickory. I do foil Butts after about 4 hours after a definite smoke ring is established. My consumption of the hickory is not too bad considering the low price of buying a dump truck load.

I do have to say - I am learning a whole bunch reading all you guys. Thank you!

I agree with the methods given so far to get one on their way. To that I would add,larger pieces split several ways yields almost pure heart wood where as small unsplit pieces or pieces split 2 or 3 ways has a high % sapwood and bark that makes unpleasant smoke.
Burning logs in a fire pit and transferring coals with a shovel works well for me.
Not something to try while learning but I believe experienced smokers will be pleasantly suprised. Useing well seasond oak,pecan or hickory and green hickory,burn a bed of coals and add them as needed to maintaine tempature throughout the cook. Add splits of green hickory during the cook one or a few at a time depending on size of pit. Green hickory imparts a mild but destint flavor. Not so with green oak,pecan or mesquite.

Never use those square black things, I always use wood coals,, it works for me