i usually do a straight 250 cook for maybe 6/7/8 hours, as long as it takes. this time i got started late and 'resigned' myself to doing them 3-1-1. have to admit, they were the best ever. i put the trimmings on a rack below (took out the fire ring, platesetter legs up/grid/trimmings/raised grid/racks over that). trimmings were almost better than the ribs. almost

last time we did them, i made the sauce (usually my wife likes to). she thought the sauce was great, asked me what i did this time, and then SHE modified that yet again for this cook. best ribs and best sauce. no idea what was in it though (as far as amounts), alas. we never write it down. cook by 'feel' mostly.

anyway, second pic was a later cook, starting the egg around 6pm. the air was so still, the smoke went straight up. this is a pic when the breeze started to knock the column of smoke down. as high as this is, before i took the pic the smoke was literally straight up in a tight column, way over the houses until it got lost in the sunlight. was pretty cool. you can see the yards are city-lots, 50 feet wide. that smoke was visible to about 8 neighbors. hahaha