A good bar-b-q starts a day or two ahead of time. This one is already starting late. I forgot to pull the ribs and back strap out of the freezer. So the meat was soaked in hot water to speed up the defrosting. I would prefer letting the meat defrost on its own, but you gotta do what you gotta do. The pit was fired up around 11 am, which means I was running late again. That morning, my son and I made a trip to the camp to shoot his shotgun and pick up some wood for the smoker. The ribs wet on around 12 noon, we are planning on eating at 4 so that gives them a 4 hour cook time. 4 hours is like the bare minimum for cooking ribs. In the below picture, in the foil is chicken, deer sausage, ribs, deer back strap and boudain on the bottom right. Everything is cooked with real wood, no propane or charcoal. The wood is a mix of red oak, pen oak and pecan. Lets not forget the pork chops Cutting up the ribs - the meat was so tender it was almost falling apart. That is chicken in the foil. It has been cooking for about 3 hours. The sausage is made from Texas whitetail deer. My son a 6 point and I got a 9 point this past hunting season. The sausage looking things on top are boudain.