On New Years day 2025, I smoked my first brisket. This brisket was about 8 pounds. It came pretrimmed (I wish I had gotten one not pretrimmed, there weren’t many options that day).

I cleaned it up the day before, at around midnight on New Year’s eve I seasoned the brisket. I used mustard as the binder and seasoned with just salt, pepper, and garlic.

I put on the brisket at about 6 am. Kept the temperature at around 220 degrees for most of it. I wrapped once it got to ~165 internal and turned up the heat to 270 degrees. At around 3:30-4pm the brisket was still sitting at around 180 internal, I got impatient and turned up the heat more. I think I only got it up to about 190 overall. I let it sit for about 2 hours before cutting into it. All in all it was on the grill for ~11 hours.

The brisket tasted great. Not as tender as I would’ve liked but still pretty satisfied for a first cook. I vacuum sealed and froze a few portions to use later. I use my sous vide to reheat the leftovers. I normally leave them in for 2 hours at 165 then serve immediately.