fat cap

At the risk of starting a brisket religious war......I'm asking as that I have an offset smoker coming in next month and I'm new to cooking on one. In my previous smoking life I used a Bandera style vertical smoker...and I used to always do fat side down to protect from that heat coming into...

For those of you that have done beef ribs, how much do you trim them before putting them on the smoker? The past 2 racks I've done from RD had quite a bit of hard fat and I'm not sure whether I should trim that all the way down, trim it down season what's underneath and put the fat back on, or...

Do you cook a pork butt with the fat cap up or down? I'm using a UDS. Do I need a drip pan? Water pan?

Tomorrow will be my first time smoking Brisket. I called the butcher down the street and ordered me a nice cut. But when I picked it up, brought it home, and unwrapped it to examine it, the fat cap was trimmed off. Since it was my first time ordering a brisket, I didn't know I had to ask to not...