The night before your cook, coat your short ribs all over with a thin layer of yellow mustard as a binder. Mix together your salt, pepper, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and cayenne in a bowl, then apply a generous, even coat to every surface of the ribs. Wrap them loosely in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. This dry brine process draws moisture to the surface and then back into the meat, setting you up for a deeply seasoned, bark-ready cook.

About 90 minutes before you plan to eat, pull your ribs from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature while you set up your shelter and prep your grill. Set up your pop-up canopy at least 3 feet away from your grill with the open sides facing away from the wind. This keeps rain off your workspace without blocking the airflow your grill needs. Lay out your thermometer, tongs, spritz bottle filled with beef broth, extra charcoal, and wood chunks in a dry spot under the canopy.

Fill your chimney starter three-quarters full of charcoal. Use a fire starter cube under the chimney rather than lighter fluid - in damp air, lighter fluid can be unreliable. Let the coals get fully lit and ashed over, which takes about 20 minutes. You want to see orange glow and grey ash on every coal before you dump them. In rainy conditions, add about 20 percent more charcoal than you normally would because rain pulls heat from the grill body and you will need that extra fuel to maintain your target temp.

Dump your lit coals to one side of the grill to create a two-zone setup with direct heat on one side and an indirect cooking zone on the other. Place two wood chunks directly on top of the hot coals. Position your vents so the bottom intake vent faces away from the wind - this gives you control over airflow rather than letting the wind blast extra oxygen at your coals. Set your top vent to about halfway open. Allow the grill to come up to your target cooking temperature of 250 degrees Fahrenheit before adding the meat.

Once your grill is holding steady at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, place your short ribs on the indirect side of the grill - not over the coals. Close the lid and let them cook undisturbed for the first 90 minutes. On a rainy day, resist every urge to open that lid and peek. Each time you lift the lid you lose 25 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit of precious heat and add 15 to 20 minutes to your cook. Trust the process and let the smoke work.

After 90 minutes, quickly open the lid and check your grill temperature using the probe clipped to the grate near the meat. On a rainy day your temp may have drifted down 10 to 20 degrees - add a small handful of fresh coals to the pile if needed. Spritz the short ribs lightly with beef broth from your spray bottle. The spritz helps bark development and keeps the surface tacky for smoke to cling to. Add one more wood chunk, close the lid, and let it ride for another 90 minutes.

Around the 3-hour mark you should start seeing serious bark development - a deep mahogany to near-black crust forming on the outside of the ribs. This is exactly what you want. Probe the thickest part of a rib with your instant read thermometer. You are shooting for an internal temp between 195 and 203 degrees Fahrenheit for maximum tenderness. On a rainy day this cook may run 30 to 60 minutes longer than a dry day, so check your coal supply and add more if the grill temp has dropped below 235 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once your ribs hit that 200 to 203 degree Fahrenheit sweet spot and the probe slides in like butter with almost no resistance, they are done. Pull them off the grill immediately - do not leave them to coast over your target temp. Wrap them tightly in butcher paper or heavy duty aluminum foil and let them rest the meat for a minimum of 30 minutes before cutting. This resting period lets the juices redistribute through the meat so every bite is as moist and flavorful as the smoke ring and bark promise it will be.

Unwrap your short ribs over a cutting board so you catch the beautiful juices that have pooled in the foil. Slice between the bones with a sharp knife and look for that smoke ring - a pink layer just beneath the bark that tells you the smoke did its job. Serve immediately with your favorite BBQ sauce on the side, never on top of bark this good. Take a moment to appreciate the fact that you just pulled off a perfect cook in the rain - that is real pitmaster-level commitment.