First brisket

Long time lurker here.  I've been cooking on the BGE for years and years but never made a brisket.  Had never had real, good brisket before, which was main obstacle to taking the plunge myself.  Last fall, my wife and I went on a 36-hour pilgrimage to Austin with some friends from Dallas so I could see what it was all about.  Given the short trip, we skipped Franklin, but loved Micklethwait and Valentina's, and La Barbecue was also very good.  Yesterday was finally the day to try it myself.  Thanks to everyone here for all the helpful posts along the way.

Bought a 16.8 lbs prime packer at Costco.  They were all huge there.  Trimmed a few pounds off.  Rubbed with S&P and a bit of garlic pepper.  Started it shortly after 5:00 AM, cooked for about 13 hours around 250, then let it rest an hour.  Used Rockwood lump, a few hickory chunks, and a bunch of pecan chips.  Wrapped in butcher paper for the last 3 or 4 hours and let BGE temperature get around 300 at the end.  Was on an inverted v-rack until I wrapped.  Spritzed with mix of water and apple cider vinegar a few times.  Took much longer than expected for bark to start forming.  Also chased temperatures all day, jumped over 300 for a bit in middle of cook, and then was sitting in lower 200s for a longer time after that.  That high temp period in the middle may have melted off too much surface fat which in turn limited the bark.  This was also my first cook with the Smokeware cap, which I liked, but need to dial it in better.

Was very pleased with the outcome overall - about as good as I could reasonably expect for the first one.  Not as much bark as I was expecting, especially not enough of the sticky stuff.  Hopefully will fix that by trimming better next time.  The flat did well on the pull test, but it probably could have used another 30-45 minutes to be totally probe-tender.  The point had been very tender for a long time by the time it came off, and I didn't want to screw it up by giving the flat any more time.  The point on this one was huge and I left it towards back of BGE until last hour or two.  Next time I will probably try to keep a better eye on internal temp and rotate the flat to the back for a while in middle of cook.  Next time will use less salt in the rub.

Which leads to a question.  All of the packers at Costco had huge points like this one.  I thought it ended up being too big, which along with not having even enough cooking, gave some of it more of a pot roast taste than I expected.  Does anyone have a rule of thumb for thickness of the point for best results?

Brisket still won't be a common cook - those are ribs, bbq, and wings, this is North Carolina after all - but now I know it can be done and done right.  Next cook will have to be beef ribs, which was what really blew me away at Micklethwait and La Barbecue in Austin.

Here are some pictures.






This was also the first cook on a new deck that was just finished.  Had an overhead flood light put in over the grills, made it a lot easier to get started before sunrise in 15 degree weather.










See what I mean - the point was huge.


Part of a slice from the point.

Thanks again to everyone for all the great information and inspiration posted here.