I lowered the pans to about 1" off the burner and smoke started at a little over 4 minutes and at 160 degrees. The wood was dry, chips in one pan and chunks in the other. Smoke was billowing at 9 minutes and 200 degrees. The doors leaked smoke, I felt bad that not all the hard earned smoke did not make it through to the top but I'm not sure it's worth sealing. At 15 minutes we hit 225 and I dialed it back to medium to see if it would hold that temperature and maintain smoke, had to go a little lower than medium which was a good thing.
Smoke slowed at 30 minutes when all the chips were burnt up. The chunks continued smoking for another 30 minutes and upon inspection only about 50% were burnt. The ones not over the flame looked untouched.
My conclusion is to hold off drilling the orifices and find a nice way to lower the pans without putting them in sideways to allow all the wood to burn. Use chunks or soak the chips. I may just make new pans shaped like a trough so gravity will push fresh wood into ask as they burn. This new pan would also have fewer holes to minimize the chance of the wood catching fire and the extend the smoke time.
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