Welcome to the group from Southwest Idaho. I used to cook a lot of brisket but not so much anymore. I read through your question and for the first time in years I actually thought about this question. I cook my brisket fat cap side up and do not wrap them at 170 or so degrees. I did wrap them early on but didn't like the way the bark came out. I get a good crispy bark on my briskets. This sort of causes a problem in itself. The bark tends to form around the grates and makes it hard to get them off the grate without pulling the brisket apart or loosing bark. I am wondering how this works when cooking fat side down? The fat cap gets soft and starts to render. This should let the grates sink into the fat cap while forming the bark. How do you get them off the grates without losing the fat cap and bark?
The Cookshack smokers are very tight, and therefore they are wood stingy and cook very moist. This is from the SMO25 manual: "Never place more than 4 ounces of wood in the smoker. 4 ounces is going to be a HEAVY smoke flavor. We recommend starting with 2 ounces for your first cook. From there, you can add or remove wood to meet your taste. " These are pretty good rules to live by. Do a search on this forum for Brisket 101. This is a good tutorial for doing brisket in the Cookshack smokers.
