Since nobody's tackled beef ribs here, I'll add my two cents on this topic.
Beef ribs do not cook like pork ribs or loin back ribs. There's a lot more connective tissue in the meat, especially toward the bone. Also, the meat is not as supple and soft as pork. Therefore, beef ribs can take numerous hours to cook and require some additional help to get tender.
First, I highly recommend taking off the membrane from the bone side of beef ribs. This membrane is much thicker than the membrane on pork ribs and, if it isn't taken off, it is extremely tough after it has cooked and makes it very difficult to bite through the meat.
After taking the membrane off, you can add your choice of rub. I generally do not like rubs that include much sugar on beef, but that's just my preference. For flavoring, I like a very simple rub of salt, pepper, white pepper, a touch of cayenne, (maybe a touch of garlic and onion powders), and thyme. I generally like to apply the rub well in advance to penetrate the meat.
For actual cooking, and this is one of the most important things I have learned over barbecuing ribs (pork ribs, back loin ribs, danish ribs, beef ribs), is knowing whether they are frozen or not, as this will have a huge difference in your final product and how you need to cook. Frozen products have less moisture. (There's a lot of literature as to how water in proteins,when frozen, creates ice crystals which are sharp and puncture cell walls leading to loss of moisture.) Beef ribs, at least in the U.S. are almost always frozen.
Accordingly, I feel that wrapping after smoking is essential. I generally smoke beef with charcoal and oak. I think Texans really have this one down (most of the most well known barbecue places in Texas use Post Oak). I have had a lot of success going around 250 to 275 using indirect heat. Any higher, INMHO, and you'll risk burning the meat because you'll need to cook beef ribs for at least 5 hours. I start with the ribs straight from the refrigerator (to create as deep a smoke ring as possible), with the thickest side facing the fire. Also, heavy smoke, IMHO, can tend to make beef taste acrid; beef seems to be much more affected, versus pork, by a heavy smoke. I try to keep the smoke gentle and slow. This is also the reason why I don't exclusively use a strong wood, like hickory, to smoke beef. (Although a single hickory chunk does really help give a complex smoky flavor along with the oak.)
I also do not check the temperature of beef ribs. They'll hit 200 but still not be tender. The key here is to melt away all that fat in the bones, which takes hours.
When the rib bones feel like they're starting to pull away from each other, I then wrap the ribs in foil and continue to cook for another 1 to 2 hours. When they feel sufficiently tender (bones are now feeling a little loose), you can put the ribs back on the smoker to dry out the outside.
If you want them more tender, keep cooking them. If you don't want to keep smoking them, you can transfer them to the oven for this portion and finish them inside, and also do the finishing cook in the oven as well.
However, DON'T dump all that juice from the foil. Use a gravy separator to separate the fat from the juice, and add the juice to any barbecue sauce you're going to use, or use it as a finishing liquid on the ribs when you serve them. There's lots beefy, smoky goodness there. Taste the juice, adjust seasoning as needed, if using as a stand alone sauce.
To serve, I usually cut the ribs, sprinkle some good salt (kosher or Maldon), and leave the sauce or juice on the side.
If I get to cooking beef ribs anytime soon, I'll put up pictures.
Man, I love talking about barbecue. It makes me want to cook today!