I'm planning on smoking a brisket this weekend (my first) and I'd to do the smoked cabbage thing as well (cut out the top, fill with butter, BBQ sauce, bacon, and some rub). I'm German and Scottish, so the cabbage, sausage, and beer gene is strong!

I did a search through the forms for smoked cabbage and there is a bit of contoversy surrounding this topic. The particular concern is that the cabbage smell will overpower the brisket. I'm thinking of putting in the cabbage in the smoker after the brisket has smoked for about 12 hours, which should make it more impervious to strong cabbage flavors. Has anyone tried this?

It won't make any difference.

Go for it.

Ok, so I didn't get a chance to try this-my brisket cooked quicker than I expected (10 hours for a 8.5 packer), so I did the cabbage later in the day. I smoked the cabbage separately for a few hours-cored it out, stuffed it with bacon, onions, butter, and some BBQ sauce I whipped up. It turned out ok, but nothing out of this world (my wife suggested removing more of the cabbage to add more stuffing, but that kind of defeats the purpose of eating cabbage)