Electric BBQ smoker question?!

Electric BBQ smoker question?

I broke down and bought an electric smoker to BBQ stuff without having to deal with charcoal. It came with ceramic rocks, however I'm not sure if there are enough. They are really small (pee sized) and they are below the heating element in the pan. Should they be touching it? It heated up enough to cook the chicken in the expected time.

Also, I soaked hickory chips and put them in the rocks. However, I didn't get hardly any smoke from them. How can I get better smoke?

Any other suggestions?

If the BBQ is a smoker-grill then there should be instructions on how to use the BBQ as a smoker. Mine came w/ a metal box that has a few holes in it as the "smoker". You put UNSOAKED chips in it and place the box on a small rack just above the heating element. Heat raises the temperature of the chips high enough for them to burn, but since there is insufficient oxygen to support an open flame, the chips just smolder and emit lots of smoke. I've used this method for decades in my charcoal grills and my propane grills. The difference was I just wrapped the chips (closing all sides) in a couple of layers of heavy duty aluminum foil, poked some holes in the foil with the BBQ fork and tossed it on the charcoal or placed it near the propane flame. The metal box that came w/ my smoker has too many holes, causing the chips to get too much oxygen which increased the "burn" rate. This in turn caused the chips to smoke heavily for a brief time then quit smoking because the wood was burned up. With a few small pieces of scrap metal and a few screws I blocked some of the holes. It took two tries to get it adjusted, but it works fine now. Smoking meats is as much an art as it is a science. If your BBQ doesn't have a smoker-box you can use the foil method. Just don't put the foil in direct contact with the heating element as it will melt the foil. Devise some sort of rack to support the foil packet, if there isn't one in your BBQ. If you want a more permanent solution, the smoker-boxes are available at many BBG equipment stores and some hardware stores.

Some BBQers place soaked chips in an open pan. Chips used this way will only smoke for the brief period when the chips have enough heat to burn, but are still too wet to burn. As soon as the chips are dry they'll catch fire and burn w/ little smoke. Using the oxygen deprevation method produces smoke for a much longer time since the chips just smolder and never catch fire.

Are you certain the rocks are supposed to be below the heating element? In the BBQs I've seen they are above the heating element. The ceramic pebbles are porous and sequester the dripping fats to reduce the probablity of the fats causing a fire. Replace them when they get real gunkie.