re: Please critique my brisket process for a heavy bark

You don’t technically even need a binder. You can salt it and let it rest/sweat, then there’s your binder.

I think people complicate brisket too much, though I like to try variety sometimes. 90% of the time it’s salt then pepper for mine. Bark then is determined by the time not wrapped and temp cooking at. If I want heavy bark I leave it unwrapped. Most of the time I just wrap at 160. No one really cares except a few cooking friends.