Why does my smoked food taste bitter?

edited: 12/27/25

NOTE: This article was written primarily for users of the Ninja Woodfire Outdoor Grill. However, the science and recommendations apply to most other wood or charcoal-fueled grills and smokers. If you're noticing a bitter, almost "spicy" flavor to your smoked foods, don't worry. You're not alone...You're simply doing it wrong!

Most people see all that billowing white smoke and think that's a guarantee of great food to come. It's not. 

The thick white smoke and resulting bitter flavor come from byproducts of "incomplete combustion," which commonly occurs during the initial stages of cooking with wood products. It happens with charcoal grills (many people mistakenly attribute it to lighter fluid or chemicals in the charcoal) it happens with traditional wood-burning smokers. It happens, but to a much less noticeable degree, with full-size pellet smokers, AND it happens with the Ninja Woodfire...

At the start of your cook, the wood product is at ambient or "room" temperature, and during the first several minutes will produce that thick, billowy white smoke. If you put your food on during this stage, your end product is going to taste like an ashtray. Wood fuels ignite more quickly and burn much more cleanly once they're heated nearer to the point of combustion. (this, far more than any "moisture reduction," is the primary benefit people get from microwaving their pellets - but that's a story for another article...)

This image shows the difference between dirty smoke (left) and clean smoke (right). Notice the difference in transparency?

After about 10 minutes, and increasingly more so as you get nearer (and beyond) 20 minutes, the bulk of the wood product in the cooker (or hopper in the case of the Ninja Woodfire) will have warmed up and will be burning much more cleanly. The smoke coming from the exhaust will be more transparent, sometimes with an almost blue tint. THIS is when you know it's time to add your food. NOT when the display says "add food" and MOST DEFINITELY NOT just after you press "start")

Follow this procedure, and you'll be in for a TREMENDOUSLY improved flavor experience. SIDE NOTE 1: Different woods (and thus different pellets) clean up more noticeably and more quickly than others. So if after about 15 minutes you still don't see noticeably clearer smoke, it's usually ok to go ahead and add your food. SIDE NOTE 2: It's a common misconception that since a Ninja Woodfire hopper only burns for about an hour, this wait will drastically reduce the smoke effect. UNTRUE! The woodfire only uses the pellets for color and flavor. And that effect happens early in the process and comparatively INTENSELY! You can read about that in this article. SIDE NOTE 3: Users of full-size pellet smokers don't typically experience the "dirty smoke" situation. This is due to the fact that since they use the pellets as the heat source, they burn the pellets several times hotter than the Ninja Woodfire does. By the time the smoker reaches cooking temperature, the initial white smoke has burned off, and the pellets moving along the auger tube are being heated to just below the combustion point as they move from the hopper to the burn pot.

Good luck! - W If you've enjoyed or found value in what you've read here, please consider visiting the shop page where you'll find a large selection of high-quality pellets, as well as my hand-made rubs. And if you're looking for pro-quality, but reasonably priced cooking supplies, check out my affiliate shopping list, It's full of fantastic tools! All of which I use and recommend personally. I do receive a small commission on these purchases. Which goes toward convincing my wife that the time I put into all of this is, at least to some degree, worthwhile : )