Smoking ribs on horizontal smoker

When you cook ribs with an indirect wood fire on a horizontal barrel smoker, do you cover the ribs in foil or just lay them on the grill?

What about when you smoke a chicken? Do you cover that in a foil?

In another post here, I have admitted to wrapping meats in foil, but never ribs!!

I assume that you are talking pork ribs. So, cut/tear and other wise take the membrane off of the inside. Coat with a good basis red rub and put them in the fridge over night. Smoke slowly and mop about every hour. You can search this site for recipes for rubs and mop sauces. And of course see Steven's books.

i think the post Roff is referring to was in a thread i started on the whole wrapping-with-foil-thang, and i'm with Roff on this--ribs don't cook long enough to benefit from wrapping in foil IMHO, plus if you wrap them from the get-go, it's basically like cooking them in the oven--you're not going to get any of the wood smoke taste which is the whole point cooking them in a smoker anyways.
I've also never found any reason to wrap a chicken in foil.

just my 2 cents

hey i never wrap any of my smoked meats in foil when cooking. the fire box on the side of your smoke chamber, should keep all the flames from burning your ribs or meats,,,,, the only meat i wrap in foil , is burgers filled with hot peppers, @ onions, it kind of makes it like a stew, but not to bad.. gives a thick gravey.. well happy smoken no matter how u cook as long as your bbqen..

You should have no need to use foil with ribs with a offset firebox horizontal smoker. Just make sure that you keep your temp around 200 degrees and mop once an hour and you will have excellent ribs.

Just make sure the 200 degree reading is taken at grate level and not on the thermometer that is installed in the lid. Temps can vary signifigantly. 50 or more degrees!

I solved this by installing a second thermometer through the end opposite the firebox just under the height of the grates at their lowest setting. It saves me from losing probes on my Polder thermometer.