I live in wisconsin. I have smoked ribs on my crappy electric smoker. I just got a new offset charcoal smoker for my birthday. It is a char-broil American gourmet deluxe offset smoker. I did alot of research and found their where some negative complaints about it and a few positive ones. I also discovered there are some modifications you can make to it to make it work better which i fully intend to make. I am looking to expand my horizons and smoke things other than ribs. Any advice or help is greatly appreciated.