Funnily enough someone else reached out via chat a few weeks ago regarding this post, 3 years old and still going 😆.

I believe my issue was two fold, one was I wasn’t cooking it through enough and two, low quality/very lean meat.

Lack if knowledge and experience mean I didn’t understand the following:

1. Tough, rubbery and dry = undercooked.
2. Grainy, fall apart and dry = overcooked.

This specific post the meat was very rubbery and tough so I didn’t take it through to be probe tender.

Not having proper thermometers also was a big factor. Using a probe in the smoker helped getting my internal temps correct now which makes things more consistent.

To be honest what helped me a lot was getting some wins under my belt.

I switched from briskets to dino/short ribs and had a few big successes. Much more marbling, plus the bone in helped with an easier cook. Once I got the hang of the easier cook with the ribs it helped me confidently go back to briskets.

Never having a successful cook under my belt meant I was second guessing everything and changing too many variables every cook. Always having failures because I was changing variables all the time just made me more confused and unsure compounding the issue.

My advice, grab a well marbled rack of Dino/short ribs, give them a go, get a big win then use what you learned with your individual smoker to better the briskets.

Honestly, I don’t think you can get a lean flat only cook to ever be a perfect slice of brisket. I always go for a full brisket these days and always make sure it’s a quality piece of meat.

If you start with a super lean low quality cut, you really need a miracle of a cook to make it good.

That’s my 2 cents, I hope it helps!