Brisket Question - Smoking the Flat

I've done quite a few 7lb-ish flats.  No difference and no problems here. I get them from my local butcher and make sure to buy quality meat.

As Centex's last brisket posting shows, a lot of the success with brisket is the quality of the brisket you purchase.

Best of luck and enjoy!

Here are a few links regarding brisket that should be of help-most with the BGE run around 260-280*F on the dome FYI:

I did two smaller corned beef briskets (about 4 pounds each) last weekend. It was my first time in the egg, but I've done several on a regular smoker. I usually do a dry rub of various herbs the night before. The morning of, I got the egg up to about 300, then put my briskets on (fat side up) and backed the heat down to 250-ish. I did notice it was harder to keep the temp low on the egg compared to my previous smoker, which leaked smoke and heat terribly and wanted to run cooler. I threw a handful of Jack Daniels chips on the coals and let it smoke a couple of hours. Then I threw another handful on and smoked it a few hours more (4-5 hours total). My dad is a pretty experienced smoker and taught me that meat will usually only take about 4 hours of smoke and then you're just wasting wood. After about 5 hours, I removed the briskets, used heavy duty foil to make a bowl shape around the brisket, then poured in some apple juice and folded the foil together on top to keep the liquid from leaking out. I did this for both briskets separately, then placed them back on the egg for another 4 hours. When the brisket was 170 degrees, I removed them. Left them in the foil "pouch", wrapped each in a towel, and put them in a cooler until we were ready to eat about an hour and a half later. When I took them out of the cooler and unwrapped them, they were still hot and so tender they just crumbled under the knife. YUMMY! I've done regular brisket this way too. There's several ways to do brisket, but this always turns out great for me. When it comes to brisket, you always want to do low and slow. Brisket is really tough so it takes a long time to break down the meat and make it tender. I know they say about 1 1/2 hours per pound, but I usually cook mine about 9 hours + depending on how big it is.