So my wife bought a smoker for me last weekend. Been reading for awhile now on how to smoke stuff, and I'm starting with ribs, spareribs to be exact.

Will see how it goes and hopefully it won't end in utter failure

Let us know how it turns out for you.

Take pictures too.

Doesn't smoking take a whole day or week?

Good luck!
I expect my invite is in the post, yeah?

Takes about 6 hours the way everyone recommends. Going the 3-2-1 method. About 225 degrees. 3 hours initial smoking, 2 hours wrapped in heavy duty foil with a splash of apple juice, and then another hour unwrapped to firm them up a bit.

You're making me hungry and I just had my lunch.

No dry rub!? The key to good smoked ribs is a good dry-rub! Ribs don't come out of the pig pre-seasoned, you have to add it yourself!

Here's what I do:
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon cayenne
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1/2 tablespoon dried leaf oregano
1/2 tablespoon dried thyme

Grind the thyme and oregano together with a mortar and pestle or food processor and then add the rest of the spices and sugar and grind or food process together until throughly combined.

Rub in the dry rub on all the ribs an hour before smoking and then do what you're already doing. If you didn't use any rub, even if you get them out and add it now it'll make them much better.

Yeah, I did a dry rub that I found while watching BBQ Pitmasters last week. Did that about 6 PM last night, wrapped overnight in the fridge. Took em out about 9:15 to warm up to room temperature and put em in at 10 this morning

wood fired or gas fired smoker?

very important to remember, when smoking greasy food, all that fat, etc drips into the water pan and can catch fire... we went to add water to one that was full of grease (not realizing it was grease at that point) and had a 30 foot fireball shoot into the air.... and more than a few singed eye brows, etc.
but damn if the food was great!

My wife can't seem to understand the whole "smoking" concept. She thinks it takes too long. I have a small, cheap, wood/charcoal fired smoker. I really need to learn how to use it properly, with rubs and whatever. My wife makes some marinades, but it isn't the same. She is Thai, so it's kind of a smoked stir-fry taste...