Yet another brisket post mortem

I did a 7 pound flat for Father’s Day and it was a train wreck. I know I made some mistakes, but I didn’t realize just how bad the end result would be.

The outside of the brisket was tough as leather especially on the bottom, and the meat was extremely dry.

Here’s the sad tale:

Heavy dosing of Kosmo Q dry rub

Put on egg at 10 pm night before. Fat side up. Temp 225°. monitored by egg genius. Plate setter, feet up.

Drop pan with water under meat

Hit stall at 160° at about 1 am.

Started creeping out of stall around 4:00 am

Dialed temp back to 220° at 7 am because thought it was ahead of schedule. By noon meat was at 190. Moved egg temp back to 225.

Realized probe wasn’t properly placed – moved it to thickest part – found out the meat temp was actually 5 degrees lower than expected. Got back to 190 by 2:00

Temp was climbing very slowly decided to wrap in butchers paper in hopes of getting it over 220° by 4:00 pm. yes, I know that was too late – I was not originally going to wrap, but decided to help get it up to temp

Only sprayed the outside once or twice – oops.

Finally hit 202 at 4:15. Pulled from the egg. With butcher paper still on, Immediately wrapped it in blankets and put in a cooler for an hour.

Total cook time – 19 hours

Rested until 5:15.

End result – shoe leather.

Here’s the kicker. When I pulled the flat at 190 to wrap it, the thermometer probe went in smooth as butter. Was it done – seems so.

So I’m curious – which of the following mistakes does the forum think MOST contributed:

1) too much salt in rub
2) should not have wrapped so late
3) should have pulled it at 190 when the probe went in easily
4) not enough spray
5) all the above
6) something else