Smoked Corned Beef Brisket

I did two smaller corned beef briskets (about 4 pounds each) for New Year's. It was my first time in the egg, but I've done several on a regular smoker. I soaked it for several hours the day before, changing the water about every 30 minutes--approximately 5 times. Then I patted it dry and did a dry rub of various herbs--seasoned salt, pepper, garlic powder, some paprika, onion powder, a little chili powder--I don't like it real salty so I didn't add a lot of salty stuff. I didn't even use the packet that came with them. Then I wrapped it in foil and stuck it in the fridge.

 

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. The apple juice helps combat some of the saltiness of the meat and makes it really tender. You could also use coke or another sweet drink in place of apple juice. 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.