Okay, a few notes from the weekend. I went ahead and tried brining the ribs for a couple hours before I put them in the smoker. BTW, my smoker is indeed a smoker, not a grill with which I put woodchips. It's a nice big black box that has a nifty little door and several racks inside. I just love it.
Anyway, I tried brining the ribs. Imho, not really a big difference in taste or texture. I'll agree and say it was an unessesary step. I brined a pork loin and smoked it as well. It was phenomenal. The ribs.....not so much of a difference. Everything took a little longer to cook than normal, but that could have been because I had the smoker a little on the full side. After 8 hours at 250°, everything was still a little on the rare side.
I ended up tossing everything in the convection oven for a few minutes because dinner needed to be done. But, all in all, everything turned out great.
For another tip, I used some apple wood that a friend had given me. WOW! By far the best wood I have used so far in the smoker. It was so dense. It really kept the temperature of the fire up. I usually do a combination of charcoal and smoker wood chunks. This time, I got my fire up to temperature with the charcoal and never again had to add any more charcoal. The apple wood burned nice, hot and long. Great flavor too.
Thanks for all the advice.