1st brisket in my new smoker

[Old dude BBQ]

First brisket in the weber SM 22.5 -



So I got up at 5 am to start the smoker and operate. In a perfect world I would have done this the night before but that was date night with the wife. I dusted off my cajun injector and mixed some beer and beef bullion and went to work.



I cleaned it up pretty well - probably 8-8 1/2 pounds there. If you look under the meat, you'll see that I lined the lower rack with tin foil - seemed like a good way to avoid foiling the entire water pan - the larger water pan in the Weber 22.5 is a pain to clean and I thought I'd save both labor and foil. Time is just after 6 am.

I had trouble getting the temp up to 200 for the first two hours. I finally got it to 225 and figured it was stable. Wife wanted to go to the store and I made her wait another hour since this smoker is new to me.

...4 hours later we come back to the house: temp is over 300, water pan is dry and the charcoal is nearly depleted. Couldn't find the damn instant read, so I misted the brisket with apple juice, foiled it, replaced the water and added more charcoal.

I should have taken a pic at this point but distraction is a terrible thing ...
Here's the flat:


Here's the point:



Here's the flat sliced:


Brisket sandwich with a light sauce:


Overall the brisket was good, but not great. It could have been more tender and it was a bit dry. I'm pretty sure my foiling the lower rack messed up the airflow so I'll go back to foiling the water pan in the future and see if that doesn't fix it.

Best part of the evening was the burnt ends. I've spent a lot of time reading through the forum about cooking them. I cubed the point, added rub and sauce and then cooked for another 75 minutes or so.

For all of you who posted about cooking burnt ends, Thank you - this was my first go round with them and it was the best part of our night:

[J_Don]

All things considered it wasn't a waste like a post I read yesterday that turned a brisket into charcoal. Looks like you got a decent bark and smokering. I never seem to get my briskys juicy enough either. The burnt ends look killer.

[Wrench_H]

Looks good to me. The burnts ends particularly look great. Nice work!

[El Ropo]

I'll take a flat sammie and a bowl of burnt ends please!