You want to start by cleaning up your ribs and by removing the membrane from the bone side. Removing the membranes from beef ribs is very important. Beef ribs have a thick and tough membrane that will block out the smoke and the flavors from rubs. Fortunately the membrane is very easy to remove. With a blunt knife, start in one corner and gently lift only the membrane from the bone. Once you have a good start, grab it with a paper towel to get a good grip and pull. It may take a bit of strength but if you are careful and pull evenly and firmly you should be able to lift it off in one piece.
With the membrane off, give the ribs a good wash. Trim off any loose pieces of fat or meat but don't remove too much fat. You need it to help keep the ribs moist while they cook. Most of the fat will melt away during the cooking anyway. Once you have them cleaned and trimmed add a good seasoning rub and place in the preheated smoker.
Though you can prepare beef ribs on a grill you won't get the kind of tenderness and flavor that you will on a smoker. Smoke whole racks, as large as your smoker will allow. Beef ribs are usually cut into racks of 4 or 5 bones but that's still a pretty big piece of meat. Make sure that you don't block the airflow in your smoker. This might require doing some stacking, but try to give the beef ribs as much space as possible to let the smoke get to them. If you need to stack ribs onto of each other then you will want to re-stack them during the smoking process to get the smoke flavor to all the ribs.
You should smoke ribs about 225 to 250 degrees F. I find that a few racks of beef ribs will be tender and tasty after about 6 to 7 hours. But remember the longer you go, with a lower temperature, the more smoke flavor you will get and the more tender the ribs will be.
I typically put barbecue sauce on the ribs during the last hour of smoking. Cut them into individual ribs and serve on very large plates with plenty of napkins. I like to make extra ribs, but plan on about 3 ribs per person.
