My 2nd Brisket Ever!

So past Sunday I turned 37 and decided to tackle my dreaded nemesis - The Brisket! First one I ever cooked turned out like jerky on the bottom. So with a little more experience under my belt and a better understanding of how my PoS pit works (drafty, blanket wearing, wood sucking, .... you get the idea)... I gave it a go.

Went down to Restaurant Depot and picked up a 12.6lb Angus Choice. Came home and trimmed it up leaving about 1/4" fat cap and then injected with a little bit of beef broth/mix.

Got a good pick of it trimmed, forgot to take one after injection. Anyways, injected and covered for 6 hours in the fridge. At around hour 8pm I took it out of the fridge and then I went and fired up the pit; um I want to say I got the fire started around 8:30pm.

Came inside, pulled the brisket from the pan and marinade, patted it down, and then applied my own dry rub.
 

Brisket tasted smoke at 9:30pm.

Took this shot after about 1 hour had to fix something so decided to snap a shot - right before a HUGE freaking storm hit that caused me to drape the cooking chamber with a wool blanket. I fought for temp for almost 3 hours. Had to keep the damper full open and could barely keep around 190-200. Was not fun! Learned from it but NOT FUN!

I wrapped the brisket at about with 2 layers of heavy foil and added some broth about 6 hours into the smoke.  Depending on temps and conditions this will very and might wrap sooner next time.  Again, its a matter of practice and experience.

Kept it on the smoker til the internal temp on the point end hit around 200-205. Brought it in, wrapped it to rest. This is after around 2 and 1/2 hours of rest.  NEXT TIME I will only keep it on the pit until the internal temp is around 170-175 then remove and wrap to rest.

Was really taken back when I cut into it. Was a really hard and pronounced smoke ring ... thicker than I liked. I smoked it fat cap up for 5 hours and 3 hours fat cap down before wrapping it to finish its cook. Only thing I can think of is the wind coming through the wide open damper and a lower cook temp than I liked.  Should hard winds and rain happen again I do believe I will wrap sooner.  Cooler temps really play hard on Brisket.  It wasn't dry and wasn't crispy tough bark.  It was in my book solid flavor and good moisture.  I need more practice though to get the technique down.

While I was happy, over joyed that it was moist and tender I was a little disappointed that it was a bit over cooked. I'd go to slice it and it would fall apart in some spots. So I decided to just do a chop.

Several people sampled it - a few heavy BBQ consumers and the consensus was that it was solid tasting, good flavor that was all the way through the meat. To me I liked it and I liked the flavor but found it lacking that wow factor to the taste. Guess I'll keep tweaking the rubs and stuff 'til I get it the way I think it needs to be. MORE PRACTICE!