Collagen breakdown hit at 168F internal. Sat for a few hours.
I took the brisket off at 180F internal. A little lower temp than ideal, but we were hungry. Wrapped it in foil to get it there, which I had never done before. I don’t like to wrap it if I can avoid it–it softens the bark. But I wanted to eat more than I wanted hard bark.
Took the foil-wrapped brisket and wrapped it in a towel. Put it aside for 30min to settle the juices. Total cooking time: about 20.5hrs. Too long, but whatever.
The meat was quite tasty. Flat was a bit dry, probably because the thing was in the smoker for so long, due to depressed overnight cooking temperature.
Overall no complaints. You can destroy a brisket: shitload of late smoke, overflowing drip pan with burning grease result, etc. But it’s pretty hard to do if you don’t have a true catastrophe. You can come up with something pretty good out of a wide range of results.
I like burnt ends. But Andy and I both prefer to slice up the point same as the flat and just eat the thing, rather than going to all the trouble of making burnt ends out of the point. The point is the best part.