Wood and Smoker

all the gas box smokers are set up like this,
burns hotter? 225 equals 225...
hotter on the the top rack and put your meat fat side down..even your ribs

I have a SS chest from Sams Club, I think about $400 circa 2002; about 5 ft tall and 2 ft square. From top to bottom there is the cook chamber with 4 cooking grates, a drip/water pan, 2 drawers for wood chips or pellets and a pretty large U-shaped burner. It cooked what I thought was some pretty good Q for 10 years after some minor mods. The drawers for wood chips sat right on top or the burners and were way to prone to ignite so I put a 1/4 steel plate "top" on them with a few 1/4" holes to turn them into smoke boxes. I also had better luck with sand in the drip/water pan, usually saturated with apple juice. The sand really helped hold consistent temps. I finally got it dialed in but had to watch it like a hawk. On the effeciency side I could usually get 4-5 cooks out of a regular grill sized propane tank. I was pretty happy with the Q until I built my 120 gallon stickburner. Nothing like real wood; much better flavor & bark. The old SS Sams smoker has been retired to a warming oven for sides & baking cobblers, etc.

That is the way I do mine with the fire inside the box and it works great.