Smoked a brisket on my new pellet smoker {pics included}

What an awesome grill. Highly recommend the Green Mountain pellet smokers. On to the brisket....

Didn't want to do a full packer and Rouses didn't have any flats cut so I talked to the butcher to see if they had some in the back that they hadn't put out. Naturally they didn't but he said he'd cut me whatever size flat I wanted off the packer. So I asked for the point if we're going that route and he said sure.

Grade was choice and I want to say it was about 10lbs.



You can see from the pic that I've trimmed the cap down to about 1/4" and removed the deckle.

I injected it with equal parts beef broth and Claude's Brisket marinade. This stuff is way too strong to use on its own IMO and the next brisket I probably won't even use it. The rub is coarse Kosher salt, cracked black and a light coat of garlic powder. Very simple.





I started with a chamber temp of 225 for the first two hours with the intention of jumping it to 275 for the remainder of the cook. Reason being, the pellet smoker doesn't put out as much smoke as a traditional offset so I'm finding that going very low for the initial hour or so gets just the right amount of smoke flavor. For the pellets I chose an oak and hickory mixture. Pic of the brisket about halfway through...




Jumped the chamber up to 275 and let it go. Wrapped it in foil at 165 internal. Poured the remaining injection in with the brisket (about half a cup). Total cook time was just over 6 hours which equaled out to about (3) 6 packs.

Pulled it when the internal hit 203. Left it in the foil and covered it with a thick towel for the hour-long rest. After much salivating, I unwrapped it...




and sliced...





At the beginning I gave some serious thought about doing burnt ends but held off this time.

And being deep in the cold drinks, I DIDN'T give much thought to slicing it properly. I should've trimmed off the top cap and sliced each section across the grain as opposed to just cutting straight down through the whole thing. Another improvement note for the next one.

Brisket came out super tender but not so much that it broke up. 203 is definitely the number I'll use from here on out. Tasted very good but will be even better without the use of Claude's next time.

And a couple of bonus pics for reading this saga...

Pulled pork from the weekend before:



And baby backs:




Enjoy!