Hello from Flagstaff, AZ

[Allon]

Welcome to the Pit from Central Massachusetts!

[Clawbear57]

Welcome to the pit from North Carolina.

[mcook2201]

Greetings and welcome from North Carolina

[swartzster]

Welcome from the Pacific Northwest

[SmokingSteve]

Welcome from Mesa AZ!

[CHNeal]

Fellow new guy here. Welcome, all the folks around here are real friendly so grab a chair and stay a while.

[Ghawtho]

In my experience you smoked the brisket too low of a temperature. Temperature of 180 degrees is closer to temperatures of a dehydrator and hence you cause the brisket to smoke dry as in making beef jerky. I wouldn’t smoke any lower than 225° and you’ll reach 165 ° much sooner. I not familiar with your pellet smoker and it’s possibly great at smoking.
I have found lower cost pellet smokers start out with heavy white smoke, then the smoke turns blue but once the Auger drops more pellets in the fire pot heavy white smoke belchers out again and back to blue smoke and this process
happens over and over, heavy white smoke, blue smoke, heavy white smoke, blue smoke.
I used a pellet smoker and the white smoke makes my meat taste like chewing on a popsicle stick or much like licking a tree. About a month ago I purchased a Yoder Loaded Wichita offset stick burner. The smoke on my Yoder Wichita emits almost SKY BLUE smoke to very thin light blue smoke and never white smoke. I keep my Yoder emitting blue smoke at all times by preheating my split logs. Preheating my split log it will burst into 100% flame within 5 seconds or less. The only downside to offset smokers is there like baby sitting a 2 year old child for 12 to 14 hours without any rest.

[Redwng]

Welcome from St. Cloud, FL.

Many explanations for a dry brisket flat but if your process has remained the same the brisket itself is probably the culprit. I only use primes which does seem to help the consistency but not completely. My wife makes an awesome beef stew with parts of my brisket that didn't turn out as expected. I also make some really good brisket hash for the mornings. Good luck.