Scott, quit opening the door and let it smoke. When you start to see smoke, from the hole, does it smell like wood smoke, or meat juice (like on the grill)?
Sometimes it smells like just smoke, sometimes like smoke and our rub (which is one of the best smells EVER. 
There's a difference, my friend. Just for fun, try keeping that door closed for the duration of the smoke, and see what happens. Even when it looks like no more smoke is coming out of the blow hole (that's what I call the exhaust hole on top), the box is still filled with smoke.
How can that be? Not trying to be argumentative, but if I can't see smoke, how can there be smoke? You know? If you open the door, more than necessary, you are disrupting the process of smoldering the wood and producing smoke, risking combustion, and letting valuable smoke escape.
And increasing the time to finish the job. I REALLY miss the glass door of my MES.
Now, before you take offense, look, again, at your statement:
"I used the cherry on 9 racks of baby back ribs on Friday and they turned out AWESOME!! Well, that's what the people we were catering for said, anyway." That's powerful stuff! Sometimes, we are much more analytical - and
critical - than are our eaters! We also tend to overthink things, too (I used to be really bad about that).
I never take offense at those that are trying to help me and I thank you for all of your words of wisdom and advice. But, you're right. We are contemplating making this a business and our biggest goal is consistency of product. We HATE to go to a restaurant and have a great meal, go back and have it taste different because someone cooked it differently or something happened. In this case, I worry about whether or not the wood is actually smoking or not. If it's catching fire or not and producing a smoke that will ruin my food, etc etc etc. I am really trying not to freak out about it all. I am absolutely convinced that the smokinlicous wood is, by far, the best smoking wood I've used, and will stake my reputation on that. With that said, we also have to let it do its job, which is to smoke. One thing you need to do is find the "hot spots" in your smoke box. Some time, take a handful of cheap chunks, spread them out evenly in your smoke box, and run it on 250 for about an hour. Let them cool, and check out the chunks. You'll see the hot spot of your element, and adjust accordingly. The electric is a different animal, but you can certainly tame the animal and make it work for you!
That sounds like great advice. However, I'm having one of my not so bright moments and have to ask, do I avoid the hot spots like the plague, or is that where I want my chunks to make sure they actually smoke?
