Brisket, to brine or not to brine

No, unless you are curing it to make corned beef.

+3 on no brine, just dry rub and then low and slow.

Injection is the only way to add moisture to the meat beforehand.

Brining does work.  Most people don't, and given the high rate of brisket failures, I'm surprised of that.  If you have a crappy piece of meat, you will possibly salvage an otherwise poor result with a brine. 

Brine both seasons and puts moisture into meat.  A rub seasons meat, using the moisture already in the meat.
Brining works great on meats that are cooked to moderate temperatures: steaks, burgers, chicken; and juicy examples of all those have plenty of moisture (ie water) left in them.  
A brisket, or a butt, is cooked to a much higher temperature (200 or so) but seem equally "moist", but in fact it's melted collagen that makes the meat seem moist, not water.  In fact, the "stall" a brisket or butt experiences is when most of the water evaporates from the meat (cooling it until the water is mostly gone).  Then, the collagen begins melting, lubricating the meat, and you finally have true barbeque.  
You can also cook a steak to 200.  Like a brisket, most water is driven off, but why is it now a piece of shoe leather?  Because a steak has little, if any, collagen!  
 
I think brining a brisket would have the same seasoning effect as rubbing it with salt, since the water is driven off in either case, leaving only the salt and melted collagen.  It's just easier to rub than brine.  

nolaegghead said:

Brining, adding the salt, makes the meat more tender.  So with brisket, it will be done at a lower temperature.  Look at pastrami, it's not cooked to the same temperatures (done at lower temps), has higher water content than brisket and can be just as tender. 

Hmmm.
Since both brining, and rubbing, with salt puts the salt into the meat, why would one make meat more tender than the other?  Plus, there's a difference between "tender" and "moist".  
I've actually never cooked pastrami (helluva thing to admit on St. Paddie's Day!) but I have had brisket that was cooked to only 160 F.  The red color was completely gone, it was, I guess, "moist", but tough as shoe leather.  
I see a "cut a brisket in half and do a side by side" experiment in the near future!  

Mross said:

Injection is the only way to add moisture to the meat beforehand.

Nope. 

I have brined butts and brisket and the results are incredible.  If I have the time, I always brine them, just like poultry.  I am even one of the weirdos that bought a brining bucket from http://www.thebriner.com/ (ok, I bought two!).  Are they good without it, of course.  I see many people dispute it, but they are often people that have not tried it.