John, congrats on your #1! It's what I have, and can do everything the big guys do. Don't over-analyze your wood appearance, smoke color, smoke output, and over-complicate your process before you've even gotten some smokes under your belt. The seasoning smoke with no meat (or heat sink) in the smoke chamber is not a very accurate situation for analysis of any of those things. Smoke some meat, how does it taste, adjust from there. There are lots of helpful folks on here with lots of helpful advice, but your #1 might work just fine in it's most simple configuration, like mine does, without lining the box with foil, etc. I don't line my box with foil. I place the wood chunks down the middle, and it smokes just fine. Keep your process as simple as possible with as few alterations from the start. You can always adjust as you go along.