Newbie Smoker - ECB

This is my first post ever on here, so I am excited to hopefully get some feedback from much more experienced smokers. I just got an ECB for Christmas and hadn't had the opportunity to try it out until earlier today. I smoked two racks of pork ribs for my first ever attempt (I figured I could never go wrong with a pig) and they actually came out pretty darn great. Plated:


Inside:




And I just have a few general smoking questions:

1. Am I just supposed to add more wood chips as soon as the ones on the coals burn out? Because they were burning out in about 15 minutes, and the wood chunks weren't lasting much longer than that either. And it didn't seem to make a difference time-wise if I smoked them or not, because I tried both ways, I was just kind of experimenting with all sorts of things.

2. The ribs on the top rack seemed to be a bit more well done than the ones on the bottom rack, why is that? I am guessing because the heat is trapped in the top because of the lack of air flow, but that would just be a guess.

3. While the ribs were smoking, I was doing some research on my new smoker and while I was reading about some of its issues, I was experiencing them at the same time. I found two different modification websites, (http://www.smoking-meat.com/modify-brinkmann-ecb-smoker.html and http://www.randyq.addr.com/ecb/ecbmods.html) both are WFS. Which of these modifications work best?

Any other advice for a new user on the ECB? Anything is appreciated. Thanks guys, I am looking forward to talking to you all.

I started with a Brinkman Gourmet smoker, similar to the ECB. I made some darn good BBQ on it, but it did need some mods before I could get that far... These tend to run hot, and the stock thermometer is useless. I used to stuff some aluminium foil in between the lid and the body to help seal it up. Also, I added a charcoal grate to bring the coals up off the floor of the smoker. Hank's advice of looking up the Minion method is good, I used the Minion method for years.

Thank you guys for the advice. I was happy to have a great first smoke and then watch my Packers beat the Vikings. I will make those mods to the ECB so I can help regulate the heat. I thought that it may have even been running cooler than it was supposed to, but of course that was just trying to gauge it off of that terrible Brinkmann stock thermometer. (Warm, Ideal, Hot? seriously?). The minion method sounds like an efficient way to keep the heat regulated, so I will give that a shot for sure. The cat litter trick sounds very interesting, is it a pretty well known trick?

Thank you guys for a great advice, I will definitely take this knowledge and apply it. I am happy that my first ever smoke went great, and was even happier when my Packers beat the Vikings. I will make those mods to the ECB so I can better regulate the temperature, because I thought it might have been running pretty low temp the entire time. But, of course I was only using the stock Brinkmann thermometer (Warm. Ideal. Hot. Seriously?). The minion method sounds like an extremely efficient method of keeping a consistent heat without having to tend to the coals and wood chunks every couple of minutes. And the cat litter technique sounds very interesting, is it a pretty well known technique?