Brisket was always my weakest category when I was competing. I've pulled off a couple of trophies and placed high in the standings, but consistency was always an issue. One week it would be killer, the next medicore at best. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
I came to realize that the problem was that in competition I was cooking to a schedule based on a turn-in deadline, and for some reason brisket does not recognize schedules or deadlines. Monitoring cooks where all things were relatively equal, extremely similar briskets could be done in 7 hours or they could be done in 10 hours.
The only reasonable cooking philosophy I can come up with for brisket is the incredibly vague "it's done when it's done". Rational thinking says that doing the same thing every time should lead to relatively the same results, but brisket completely defies reason in this manner.
Has anyone else noticed this BBQ anomaly?