With that much fire, you are basically cooking the same way you cook on a barbecue grill. I would think that if you leave the meat in too long it would get dried out and over-done.
If those are commercial charcoal briquettes, I haven't cooked with them for years, but I like to let them get all the way white. Then you put your soaked, preferable green, fruit wood on there, then your meat and close 'er up. By the way, small amounts of wood. You don't want to start a bonfire. I use chips, a few at a time and add more when those are gone.
You are going to have to play around with that smoker to learn what works best.