Maximum Size Brisket In An 008

you can check out the link to Mainly Dave's from the forum welcome page. Here is link to how he does it by rolling it up. You could probably tie it if needed.

Just bend it. I've done 15-16 pounders when I've been lucky enough to find them.

Don't tie it or roll it. It won't hurt to touch the sides and it will shrink. Hard to cut meat that's been rolled.

It's the shape as well as the weight. You can get a thick or a thin 15 lb and it might not fit without touching.

Look for a packer with a thick flat and go with it. Don't go for anything over say 14 or 15 lbs. Be a lot of fat in that big a one.

Thanks to the guys who took a few minutes to sort things out for me.
I have been concerned in the past with meat touching the sides of
the smoker and gone out of my way to avoid it. Nice to see that it
really isn't that big of a deal.

The sides of my smoker has built up with a thin layer of black residue that
I casually wipe from time to time. I always remove the foil and wipe
out any fat that developed on the bottom of the smoker but have never
done a major clean out in the four or five years I've had the smoker.
Any thoughts about just how through a cleaning I might do on the walls of my 08?

Did a 14lber last week. The shape allowed me to angle it in a bit with the big end toward the back. Had to bend it under at the thinner end in the front -- by the time it was finished it shrunk to the size of the rack.

I wouldn't clean the walls at all, sometimes if there is some flaking I might brush those off but that is it, No ah, ah, to messing with the smokers seasoning.

Jackcannata:

I think about all the cleaning most of us do is to (very occasionally) scrape the walls of the smoker if it appears that stuff is loose or flaking off. A credit card or a plastic paint scraper is the tool to use... and don't be anal about it. I have an 055 which is the big brother to the 008 (same size racks) and I scraped about a 4 inch square section of it yesterday which was the first scrape in over 6 months.

In other words, if stuff comes off easily, take it off... if not, it's not hurting anything.

rolling, curling, bending, folding; it's all semantics. reality is you do what's necessary to get it to fit in the smoker. it's all good. and as the meat cooks down it will tend to flatten as it shrinks. If someone doesn't like the idea of the meat touching the sides it wouldn't hurt to tie it to keepoff the smoker walls; it will still tend to flatten as it cooks.