When cooking a beef brisket on a pellet grill/smoker there are two stages. The initial stage of the cook where the brisket is taking on smoke flavor and the second stage where its wrapped and placed back in the pellet grill/smoker to braise up to temperature (around 200 degrees internal).

In terms of how long you should smoke a brisket, it obviously all depends on the size of the brisket. Therefore 'how long' is the wrong question, the better question is 'up to what internal temperature should you smoke a brisket?'.

Generally speaking, once the internal temperature of the brisket has reached 165 degrees the outer bark of the brisk is pretty much fully formed. Hence, at that point, you're not able to get any more smoke pentration into the outer layer of the brisket.

Brisket Recipe 1

Brisket Recipe 2

Brisket Recipe 3

Brisket Recipe 4