Brisket Sanity Check!!!

Did you get the results you were after? If so then I'd say you're doing great! How did it feel when you probed it?

If you think you made a mistake and know where to correct it your in a learning curve none of us get everything right all the time. So keep notes and keep trying until you get what you want. If your taste was good and it was tender not sure what else your looking for. I have had briskets take up to 16 hrs at 225.

Warren

From your description it sounds like you manually introduced a stall at 200. If you then pulled it at 200 is most likely never went any further and probably just wasn't done yet. With brisket 190-200 is the ballpark where you start probing. But it's not ready until you can slide the probe in with little to no resistance all over. Sounds like you're on the right track though

Toro.. a few things I see that you could try differently...

Haven't done a lot of brisket to date but am turning my attention to it this summer! Smoked a 10lb brisket last weekend, on at around 1:30am, foil wrapped at 150, and reached 200 by 10:30ish, so around a 9hr cook at 250-275 throughout.

Next time wait until you get to an IT of 160`-165` before wrapping in foil.. this is "usually" when the stall acures ...
Next... I think this is where it went wrong for ya... as you stated that when you unwrapped, the temp dropped to 185 and so put it back in to get IT back up to 200-205 ... It had already reached 200` once already so it was done (or close to it pending probe test)..
Next time leave wrapped until probe tender.. wrap again with more foil and put it in a dry cooler, cover with old towels (it seems to tenderize more the longer it sits in the cooler)... until close to serving time... If you want to firm/dry up the bark then put it on hot indirect heat for about 30 minutes or so (until your liking)...