I am not the OP but I am having similar issues.
Last night I said I was going to try at 225 and about 2 hours after I dropped the temperature, I looked out and saw the temp at 300 and watched it climb to 335 before coming back down. I missed the billowing smoke part this time though. Normally mine runs at set temperature +/- 20 degrees which I find perfectly acceptable. I have actually witnessed the issue a few times. In my case the tipping point is when the valley of the temp swing hits about 20 degrees below the set temperature. At that point the temperature usually starts climbing back up. When it does not, it starts to make the nasty smoke and will drop another 20 to 30 degrees and then I can hear the fire roar to life and it will shoot as much as 110 to 120 degrees over the set temperature. This is with the cap as open as possible. There are only a few threads meshing with the nut, just enough to keep it from falling over.
As a side note it seems to do this when the temperature rise over ambient is less than around 150 degrees. I am experimenting today. I am starting at 225 and if I have the issue I will turn it up to 250, then 275, until it does not happen.