Of course this is a matter of personal preference, but a clean burning fire with only heat exiting the stack is my ideal scenario. I like to think of food that comes off my stick burner as "cooked with a wood burning fire" not "smoked". If I burp up smoke later in the day, the meat was oversmoked for my liking. I also find that having my face in and out of the firebox and cook chamber for 8...10...12 hours really mutes my taste buds and by then I usually dont even want to eat whatever it is I spent all that time cooking. That reason, among othera, is why I often cook in advance now. As others mentioned, a shower can help. I mainly use oak and hickory, with an occasional stick of cherry for color. Im honestly not sure I can tell the difference in food I cooked with only oak and food only with hickory, but perhaps if I did a side by side. Could be that I just dont have complex enough taste buds. I just know that food cooked on a clean burning wood fire tastes best to me.