Need some help...

[nascar_in_tx]

Hey All,

I've been informed that friends want me to come out to their lake house 300 miles away and do a brisket for a friends retirement party. I've done a couple of briskets on my New Braunfels offset barrel smoker with ok results.

The kicker is my smoker will be a cinder block makeshift smoker. Internal size is about 5' x 3' and stands about 3' tall to the cooking grate. A domed sheet steel lid closes it with a couple smoke stacks. We have smoked a couple of whole split hogs on it with reasonable success.

For the hogs we've done charcoal brickets in all four corners of the pit and   tossed on wet mesquite chunks for smoke.

When I've done brisket at the house I get a fire started with charcoal and then toss on split logs for the smoke / heat after that. I  feel like I have more control with a proper smoker as opposed to the improvised pit.

Any suggestions as far as what to smoke with in an open pit of this nature? All charcoal with some wood for smoking or split logs? I plan to do a full brisket. In something that big, does approx 14 hours at 125  to about 185 til I pull it off sound about right still? Was planning to wrap it up in foil and towels and toss in a cooler with pillows for a couple of hours before we slice it.

Having only done a couple of full briskets and never on a big rectangular pit like this, I could really use some help here. I normally do ribs, chickens and fatties

 

[pineywoods]

Personally I would try using charcoal and then just chunks of wood for the flavor. I would try to get the smoker temps to stay around 225 or as close to it as I could get to that

 

[nascar_in_tx]

Thanks for the suggestion, btw, that should be 225 degrees not 125.

 

[pineywoods]

I think with charcoal your temps will be more consistent and you won't have to take the lid off so often as you would to add wood splits

 

[alblancher]

Can you bring your smoker with you?  Only good thing about using someone else's smoker is if it gets screwed up you have an excuse.  Other then that you have complicated things with a smoker you are not familiar with.  Is the smoker large enough to just go ahead and burn splits from the beginning, get your coal built and just add small splits to the coals?