Brisket lessons, questions

I talked to a friend at work last Friday who does some competition BBQ, and he inspired me to try another brisket. Prior to this cook I'd had only moderate success with briskets. Exec summary on lessons learned:

• I'll buy Prime brisket from now on, the meat was SO much better
• I did not get a good coat of dry rub on it, I used salt/pepper and some Dizzy Dust. Future briskets will have a good, thick coating of rub
• Pro tip, blower assembly flange to the right for a Stoker... sigh
• I'll allow 1.5 hours/lb with my current setup, plus a bit of padding. I cut it too close again.
• If you build your own Stoker waterproofing container be sure your probes will fit through the 90-degree PVC pipe  

I bought a 12.2 lb Prime brisket from HEB, $52 so the price seemed good. It had a bit of extra fat but I decided not to trim it as I'd rather too much fat on a brisket than too little. The non-Prime briskets appeared to be well-trimmed, but again they were not Prime so I passed.

Went to Home Depot Sat afternoon and got a bin, duct tape, and a 90-degree piece of PVC tubing. The plastic on the bin did not cut very easily, it was difficult to make a true circle cut, but it was good enough. Got it all taped together and then began running my AC cord and probes through the L-shaped PVC. It turned out my PVC was too tight for the probes to pass through, so in the interest of getting started I decided to run the temp and pit probes out the top of the container. I put the container on the lower shelf of my table, and draped a towel over the top shelf during the cook since it seems to be raining constantly here in Austin lately (actually a blessing). I will try using some long-handled clippers to cut the PVC pipe that is on the inside of the container, to try and make more room for the probes. If that does not work I'll probably head back to Home Depot to get the right PVC cutter. For this cook my waterproofing solution worked just fine.


I put salt, pepper, and some Dizzy Dust on both sides as prep. The other day I made some burgers and SWMBO said it was a bit too much, so with that memory tape running I put on just enough of a dry rub. I know, mistake. Next time I'll use a lot of salt/pepper, and some DD. It was just enough rub, but more would have been better.

Fired up the Egg around 7PM Sat night, and put on the brisket fat side up at around 8:15PM. The Egg was running a bit hot, around 285, so I kept closing my new Smokeware cap more and more. Finally I had it down to about 1/16 inch, and it was still running hot. After only a short ~2 hour brain cramp I realized that I'd probably placed my Stoker blower in upside down, so that the gravity-based flap was staying open. A quick YouTube check for Rock's confirmed my mistake. Funny thing, it settled right in at 225 shortly after I put the flange to the right... 

I went to sleep trusting the Stoker (2nd low and slow with it), and looked at my phone just once during the night. Steady as a rock (see what I did there?). In the morning around 10AM I checked my StokerX log and noticed the blower fan ran quite a bit during the night. I then remembered that I'd left the Smokeware cap barely open 1/16 inch. Duh. I went out and opened it up to ~1/4 inch, and the fan ran far less from that point (see black vertical lines at the bottom of the temp graph). I did this screen grab later at night, that's why the pit temp had dropped:


The kids were coming over at 1PM for Sunday lunch, and around 11:30AM I was at 181 or so food temp. I cranked up the pit temp to 250 to finish in time, and just did, with the 190 temp target hit a bit before 1. I pulled it and let it rest about 25 minutes before we dove in. With my current setup it seems to be taking 1.5 hours/lb for my briskets and pork butts. I don't have an AR, just a platesetter and standard LBGE grill. For now I'll plan accordingly.

Served it with baked beans and mashed potatoes, no pics of those. The brisket ended up being successful, the boys even said it was really good and they still go to Franklins regularly. They just said add a bit more rub, but for them to be complementary is really something... I thought it was great, a good flavor, moist, and fork tender.


As for the questions:

• Would you trim a Prime before cooking, or after? We like some fat with our slices, this one was almost too much but was very good 

• Lots of salt/pepper a la Franklin, or add some DD as well? I've read that mustard can reduce a smoke ring, so I'll probably avoid that

• My buddy at work does not use an Egg, and wraps his in foil at 170. I'm inclined not to do that since this was tender enough, but might try it once

• Would an AR reduce my average hours/lb cook time?

Thanks to all!