Hi guys, new here and also brand new owner of PK-100 3 weeks ago. I haven’t used it much yet, but I have experienced that heavy white bitter smoke twice now with bacon and some queso dip. Just curious how you guys with this smoker are avoiding this? I am using hickory sawdust fro PS. About 2/3 pan full and have done both dry and moist. Anyone have any tips? Have been running at 1250 watts because it is very cold here in Wisconsin.

So for the queso dip, I may have put it in too early. I mixed all the cold ingredients into a pan (meat was warm) and set the PK at 250 and probably didn’t let it warm up if I remember.

For the bacon, I did yesterday I prewarmed the PK for about 30 minutes to 150 and then dropped it to 100 before I put bacon in.
I then put the almost room temperature bacon in with no smoke for 40 minutes.
I then added a damp 2/3 pan of hickory sawdust from PS Seasoning and bumped up the temperature to 130.
After 2 hours, the smoke stopped, so I added another pan of sawdust, but this time I did not add any water to the sawdust.
When that smoke stopped (about 2 more hours) I bumped up the temperature to 170 until IT of 135 (this took about another 1-1/2 hour.

I tried the bacon after it got to room temperature and fried some and it had that bitter smoke taste. I vacuumed sealed it now and will rest it for 2 days in the fridge and see how it tastes…hoping it will mellow a bit.

Just wondering what you all with the PK-100 are doing and if you are adding water to sawdust?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far

Forgot to add vent settings…

First hour-open vents.
During smoke, 1/3 open.
During the last step, closed with no smoke.

Yum…one of my favorites. Where did you get your casings? Not sure I have ever seen one that long!