I currently have three smokers, and have had a half dozen others. It's odd, but the cheap "Little Chief" still puts the most smoke on the meat. It burned out years ago, and even the replacement burned out years ago. For mothers day I smoked brown sugar chicken in that old smoker. I simply buy the electric charcoal starters and sit on the bottom of the smoker and put a pan of chips right on the electric heating element. It pours smoke into the whole back yard.
It has a hole in the top for venting. I have it plugged with a wooden plug. To smoke cheese I pull the plug, pull the rack out of the smoker and place on top of the smoker. Then I put the cheese on the rack and cover the whole rack with a clear plastic bag. There is so much smoke the cheese is barely visible. The cheese melts if you put it in the smoker, but on top it turns out perfect.