Rant: took me 5 months to figure out why my ribs were always gray

I kept chasing temps and rubs for 5 months, but the real problem was my fire. I was throwing on unlit charcoal and letting the white smoke roll the whole cook, so every rack came out looking like wet ash on the outside. The day it clicked was a Wednesday in April when I noticed the smoke smelled like a matchstick for the first 40 minutes. I started lighting a full chimney and waiting 15 minutes until the smoke ran thin and blue, and the color changed on the very next cook. Then I quit wrapping in foil at 165 and let them ride to 200 with just a spritz of apple juice. Has anyone else wasted a whole spring on dirty smoke because they were too stubborn to change one step?