Brinkman Trailmaster conversion need help.

[jakedatank51]

I have had my Brinkman for a few years now and love it. I have done a few mods and I purchased the Brinkmann Trailmaster Horizontal Baffle Plate from smokermods and love it. I have even temps from side to side. Have the clamps and gaskets on door firebox tray and a few others. Its perfect for ribs pork buts briskets ext.. But I am big into venison snack sticks. Just did a batch last weekend turned out awesome, but I had one heck of a time keeping temps low 150s to 170s and I did finish them off in my oven after about 6 hours on the smoker. I have been playing around some ideas.... If anyone could give input on this or let me know what they think that would be great..

1. First off get a PID

2. Get a 1500watt heating element. The brinkman one

3. Make a Baffle for the fire box. Or even just a nice piece of steel to deflect heat into smoking chamber. Or is this not needed?

So my idea here is to put the 1500 watt heating element into the fire box. Connect it to the PID. Let it heat up. Place wood chips/sawdust onto pan that's on the heating element to produce the smoke. PID thermo will be placed into smoking chamber for perfect temps..

A question I do have is would 1500 watts be enough to heat it up to 150-170 range for snack sticks? Can I go with a lower Watt heating element?

Am I crazy for this or should I just fold my cards and have to turn to a Bradley Original with the PID for sticks... 

I am a stick burner by heart but I just need a little convince with making  snack sticks...