Very nice...

Yup! That's a crowd! Nicely done! :thumb:

I love burnt ends...and those are still pink in the middle too!

Pretty sure that's smoke ring, not medium rare.

Butt out Mr. Nosey Parker!!

Pretty sure that's a brisket, not a butt.

You are correct. My wife took that picture on her phone and it looks like she put some kind of effect on it. I don't foil my brisket unless I'm under a time crunch so the entire brisket smoked for around 16 hours. I let it sit for an hour before cutting off the point, chopping it and throwing the ends back on for another couple hours. After 19 or so hours it was definitely not medium rare.

Oh, and I like to support my local butcher shop but holy **** at paying $5+/lb for Choice brisket. They had to mistakenly charged me the trimmed brisket per lb price. I can get that shit at Costco for just over $4/lb.

I love it. The only mod I've done is to connect the charcoal ring with the charcoal grate. That way, when the cook is done, I shut the vents and it just kills the coals. Then, when everything is cooled down, I just grab the charcoal ring, shake it a few times, and all the ashes fall into the bottom part of the smoker, while the unburned or partially burned coals stay on the grate and in the ring. Then I lift it out, dump out the bottom, and I've got coals for next time. It's amazing how much good coal is left after a 5 or 6 hour cook. It'll hold 225-250 for 6 hours easy with about half a bag of charcoal without having to add any during the cook.

What's smoke ring? Are you saying the pinky red color is smoke?

I have a REALLY old Brinkmann bullet smoker (like 35 years young!!!)...

On mine I got a second charcoal pan, bent-over the prongs near the bottom of the smoker that had originally held the pan off the ground, and on both pans I've drilled holes and used all-thread to allow the pans to free-stand on the ground so I can lift the larger part of the bullet off the coals entirely.

That allows me to start the next set of coals and not have to toss, throw, shovel, and hope that unlit charcoal gets in there.

The next challenge is to figure out a better mouse trap for adding water...

That's correct. A slow, steady smoke will develop a layer of pink. The thicker the ring, the further the smoke has penetrated.

FMB, this is not correct. The smoke ring isn't caused by smoke at all. It actually has no smoke flavor. It is caused mosty by Carbon Monoxide and Nitrogen Monoxide, which are common combustion emissions. These chemicals prevents the hemoglobin and other natural chemicals in the meat from turning color, which would be sort of a brown/gray color. These gases only penetrate so far, so the pink ring only goes so far. The term smoke ring is a misnomer.

This doesn't happen unless smoke is involved, though... So maybe that's why it's called smoke ring.

Actually, tooge, I'm not sure you're 100 percent right either.