Which to Believe
 

I am in the early hours of as brisket smoke and the Maverick ET 732 says the pit is holding at 224 degrees. But the pit thermometer on my Fatboy says 280. Don't want to shut it down to check thermometers. Any recommendations on which to believe since one says i am cooking Low and Slow which is what I want and the other says I am nearing Hot and Fast?

grate temp is typically 25 or more degrees cooler from the smoker therm temp. I too, have a Backwoods.
Trust the Maverick

Oh you are NOWHERE near H & F

how far apart are the thermos. do you have another thermo to double check. add a pan of water to conduct the heat more evenly, maybe

Well, unless you have verified either or both of them recently using boiling water, they both could be off :) I would tend to trust the Maverick since it is thermocouple based and I'm guessing that the door therm on the Fatboy is a spring type which is more likely to be off.

When I test my Maverick it was 2 degrees off. 214 instead of 212
I would trust the Maverick IMO.

pull out the mav real quick a dunk in some boiling water. then you'll know for sure without stopping the cook.

He's got a backwoods with a built-in water pan. He should be fine.

it's still early, and an insulated smoker like ours (BWS) are known to take a while for temps to stabilize.

As several predicted. the pit thermometer has dropped (in this case to 248) while the Maverick is now 229.

I have read several comments about pulling and foiling allowing the brisket to cook in its own juices the last few hours. Any recommendation as to what trigger point I should use to pull and foil?

Some go lower... me, I'd make sure I had at least 1 - 190 degree reading, if you take more than one.

Rest it a good long time, wrapped well. How long? At very least, 1 hour. 3-4 is much better.

Hard to do sometimes... as the natives get restless (and downright mean sometimes) wanting a plateful.

AND... they outright dismiss talk of "resting". Amazing how nasty your own family can get when they sense Q is on the horizion.

I am actually cooking for lunch tomorrow. Just did not want to do an all nighter. So time and rest is not an issue. But if you "let it rest", to me that would imply just letting it continue to cook using its own internal heat and juices while wrapped and not back in the oven. Is that what you were implying?

Some folks foil the brisket when either the internal temp hits 160 - 165 or when the bark is the color that they want. I am in the bark color camp. When you bark is the right color lay out two sheets of heavy duty foil and put the brisket fat down on the foil. Fold up the edges of the top sheet of foil and add some beef stock or beer or ??? and then wrap it tightly. Then warp the second sheet of foil around the first, again tightly. Then put it back in the cooker until your thermometer probe goes in with little to no resistance in a few places in the flat. Since you're cooking for lunch tomorrow at this point you want to chill the brisket as quickly as possible and then refrigerate overnight.

As an alternative, you can rest the brisket once it is done for a couple of hours and then slice it and vac-u-suck the slices and reheat them in boiling water tomorrow.

You're cooking at 224. The Maverick is correct. 99.99% chance.

i foil when the berk lokks real nice usually 155- 165. if you are not used to this keep an eye on it. it will power right through the stall or maybe have a short stall, but the reward is all that goodness that is collected.

i need to slow down my typing. " bark looks real nice". sheesh!

Theres a huge swing in temps from the lowest rack in a BWS (above the boiling water pan), to the top rack (only inches from the roof of the cooker). Unless your thermo's are in exactly the same spot, there could easily be that much variation in the temps and both could be accurate.

Cheers,
Braddog