We bought three racks of Hormel baby back ribs at a nearby grocery, about $9 a rack. They have meatier, less fatty, and far more expensive ribs but the Czar does not need to waste the money. He can turn these into edible gold. Besides, the fat drips off, leaving more succulent meat than the monster rib racks can provide.

At 9:30am, Sunday morning, the Czar took about six-to-eight chunks of hickory wood and placed them into a deep, aluminum foil pan. He poured water over them until the pan was about filled; we continued to roll the wood pieces around until wet on all sides and let them sit.

Okay, so here is our smoker. It is a 22.5-inch Weber water smoker. It has no digital anything. There are a number of parts to it that may not be obvious: a half-dome lid, a central portion with a door, and a bottom half-dome.

The middle portion contains two grill racks (and upper and lower so you can cook multiple foods at once). Below the bottom rack is a metal bowl that sits above the coals. The coals are piled into the bottom half-dome, like a regular Weber grille. If you lift the middle section, the racks and bowl all come along for the ride.

The Czar took off the smoker lid and placed it on the ground. He then picked the middle portion of the smoker right off the little hemispherical bottom and set it aside.

The Czar needed to light the coals first; we prefer a chimney starter. You begin by spraying some non-stick cooking spray onto some non-colored newspaper. You roll those into paper tubes and coil them inside the bottom of the starter until fairly well stuffed.

Fill the upper part of the chimney starter with charcoal. Never use the kind that has the lighter fluid built in, unless you want to ingest gasoline. Use dry, 100% pure charcoal, please.

Take a match and light the newspaper at 3 or 4 places and put the starter into the bottom half-dome. It will begin smoking right away as the burning newspaper slowly burns away the cooking spray. The Czar waits about 15 minutes until he sees an orange-yellow glow in the middle of the coals.

At about 9:50, the Czar went to prepare the ribs!

Smoke continued to billow out of the starter, so we safely placed the starter upright onto the grate inside the lower half-dome.

We took the ribs out of the refrigerator and sliced each of the three plastic bags, allowing the blood to drain right into the sink. You have to be used to blood when you are a Czar, so this has never been an issue; however, the Czar will spare you that photo.

The drained ribs are placed on a metal sheet pan. With a sharp knife, turn the ribs over and look for the membrane. Rib membranes are thin, sinewy sheets. If you get the corner up, peel it right off the ribs like you were pulling an Obama-Biden bumper sticker off a Prius. Sometimes, though, you need the knife to slice off the stubborn pieces of membrane. Pitch this in the trash where the dog won’t steal it.

Now you put on the rub. The Czar uses his left hand to sprinkle barbecue rub on the ribs while spreading the rub on the raw pork with his right hand. This makes sure that the unused rub is never contaminated by pork blood.

Do you have a favorite barbecue rub? The Czar uses one developed by the great Steven Raichlen. Here is his recipe, which makes a full cup of rub (enough to last a long time) and costs pennies to make:

1/4 cup coarse salt (sea or kosher)

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup sweet paprika

3 tablespoons black pepper

1 tablespoon garlic flakes

1 tablespoon onion flakes

1/2 to1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon celery seeds

That’s all there is. Store it for a year or more in a plastic, sealable container. We use it on chicken, pork, and even steak. Or you can spend eight bucks on a small-bottle commercial brand that uses the same stuff. It’s up to you.

Be sure to get the top, underside, and the side edges of the ribs! When done, let them sit for a couple of minutes.

Meantime, your coals should be ready. Pay attention, because this part goes fast. At 10:00am, the Czar saw the coals were glowing a wonderful orange-cherry-yellow. He picked up the starter and poured them right into the bottom of the half-dome.

Then, we poured another heap of unlit coals on top of the lit ones. As the lit ones burn, they will light the unlit ones for you.

Almost immediately, we took three pieces of soaked hickory wood—it has been in the water the entire time—and chucked them onto the unlit coals.

We then placed the middle section of the smoker back onto the lower half-dome. Believe it or not, by this point, the heat from the coals has started the hickory wood smoking. Keep moving! Get three or four pitchers of water and fill the metal bowl in the middle of the smoker about three-quarters full.

Okay: the new coals are lighting, the hickory is smoking, and the bowl has water. Go get your ribs and place them on the smoker racks as shown to the right. You can do more than three racks, of course.

Cover the smoker with the lid. It is now about 10:05am.

Quickly monitor the temperature on the thermostat. It will begin climbing rapidly! At about 200° Fahrenheit, close the three circular vents on the bottom half-dome until they are almost fully closed. Leave a teeny-tiny crescent moon of an opening.

The temperature will continue to climb. At about 250°, close the vent on the top of the lid until just barely open.

For the next two hours, continue to open the vents or close them slightly. Your goal is to keep the temperature between 200° and 250° ideally, as you guessed, you want about 225&deg. As a result, you want to check about every 15 minutes until the temperature stabilizes.

At 12:30pm, the Czar opened the silvery door on the side of the smoker and chucked in a fistful of unlit charcoal and another chunk of hickory.

He then removed the lid (shown here at that precise moment) and lacquered the ribs.

To do this, take a clean plastic spray bottle and fill it with three-quarters cup of unsweetened apple juice and a quarter-cup of unsweetened apple cider vinegar.

Quickly remove the lid (every second you do costs you a lot of heat) and spray, spray, spray! Nail each of the rib racks with a lot of lacquer, until they glisten. Then, quickly replace the lid.

At 1:30pm, repeat: more charcoal, another chunk of wood, and another salvo of lacquering spray. Yes, you will need to monitor the temperature again because opening the lid will cause temperature fluctuations. Open or close the vents until the temperature stabilizes.

At 2:30pm, repeat that charcoal, hickory wood, lacquering gig. But don’t freak out if the temperature is not falling. If you get good at this, you might not need to adjust the vents at all. Just make sure the temperature is holding around 225°

At 3:30p, the ribs are ready for the next step. You can tell because the ends of the rib bones are sticking out about a quarter-inch to half-an-inch.

You get the drill: chuck in some more charcoal, and throw in whatever chunk or two of hickory wood you have left. Lacquer the ribs for the last time.

Then, do not put the lid back on. Instead, carefully (and we do mean carefully) lift each rack off the grille with a long spatula. Place each rib rack on a sheet of foil and neatly wrap it. Return the foil-enclosed envelope of ribby joy back to the smoker and repeat with the next racks as required. The picture shows all three of our racks neatly wrapped in foil.

Now put the lid back on. In all probability, you will see the temperature in the smoker plummet to 150° or lower. When the lid goes back on, you should see the temperature climb back up. Help it by opening the vents a bit on the top of the lid.

Let these ribs cook for another hour or so.

At 4:30pm, the Czar removed the lid.

Using the long spatula, he placed the ribs onto a clean metal sheet pan and carried them into the house. Let them sit: do not open them, no matter how curious you are.

The Czar went out to clean the smoker. Hot! So use gloves. Basically, wash the racks and the water bowl with dish soap and water from the garden hose. The Czar dumps his remaining coals into his fire pit.

He reassembles the smoker and leaves it cool down for at least an hour before closing the vents and covering it back up. So what to do for that hour?

Ribs! Here is the first rack, unwrapped and placed on a serving platter. See the dark skin? That’s called bark and is an indication of doneness. Note also the bones popping out the side: that indicates they are cooked correctly inside as well.

Finally, when you slice into your ribs, you will notice a pink glow to the outer edges of the meat. This is called the smoke ring, and there should be a minimum of 1/16th of an inch of pink on the outer edge. The Czar gets his about 3/8-inches deep, but that doesn’t mean they are any better: just that they will have a smokier flavor. The deeper the pink extends from the edge to the center, the smokier the taste.

The point is, the pink is good. We know when you eat pork, the last think you want is juicy pink bits, but in the case of smoked foods, it means you succeeded.