First ribs of the year

I'm proud to say I've never hit a deer while living in the midwest

but i've come close more times than i can count

I learned how to be alive from that guy

Electric or pellet should be ok. Pellet smokers automate feeding wood into the fire, which makes them very predictable (in a good way) and the temperature control is dead simple. With a regular electric smoker, you need to add water and wood chips to make smoke. You can get good results with an electric smoker, though, they're just kind of fiddly.

My dad has a Traeger combo unit (gas grill + pellet smoker) that's pretty darn nice, but it was also like $600. You might be able to find a cheaper version of the same thing though. One thing I tried in the past that I would not recommend though was using a Weber gas grill and trying to smoke stuff inside it using various online tutorials. It never really worked all that great, the smoke flavor was very underwhelming.

I didn't make anything this time. I was eating by myself and just stood in the kitchen stuffing ribs into my face like a caveman. Usually though, I like light sides with barbecue. I'll normally make a pickled cucumber salad with red onions and bell peppers or something along those lines.