I found this thread after posting and performing a more refined search
http://forum.cookshack.com/eve...=193100961#193100961
I think I just bent the element up a bit, it looked like it was touching the wood box now. I understand cranking up the temp to get it to smoke, which would give you the visible smoke. but if you want to smoke something at less than 250-275, that really doesn't fix the problem.