Beef short ribs are one of my favourite pieces of meat to smoke and eat. The long smoking time allows all of the fat and collagen to render making these ribs the juiciest ribs you have ever tasted.

Allow at last six hours but plan for more. The ribs shown in this post took eight hours. I wrapped them after six hours and covered them in a double wrap of tin foil. After they came off the heat I rested them in a cool box for two hours while still wrapped and insulated in a towel.

The basic recipe is as follows:

• A rack of short ribs – 4 – 6 ribs
• Equal measures of salt, pepper and garlic powder
• A binding sauce – I used French’s Yellow Mustard

That is it, nothing overly complicated. To start with I removed some of the hard fat from the ribs. This fat won’t render down properly, stopping the flavour in the rub getting to the meat.