I am the kind of person that doesnt have a bunch of time to tend the fire all night long, believe me I tried it and it was fun and all, but with as much time I put in at work, sleep becomes more important!
anyways... I have been having real good luck with my brisket with the following method.
1. come home from work and fire up the smoker, go inside and rub the brisket
2. place brisket on smoker after about an hour, when the first few logs are burnt down with good coals.
3. smoke that brisket till bedtime without opening smoker at all, just adding logs to maintain temps.
4. around bedtime, remove brisket from smoker, place in foil pan, cover it with foil, and put it in the oven, with meat temp probe of course. set the oven temp to 170 and let it go all night.
5. the next morning check it and make any adjustments in temp, if I want to slice it Ill set it to 180 but if i want to pull it, then I set the oven to 200
6. come home from work and it should be done, pull it from the oven and wrap in towels for an hour or two, then slice/pull when ready.
I also use the juice from the pans to whip up my own finishing sauce.
I have done as many as four large 10-12 #'ers at once and they all came out awesome!
so altogether the brisket is being cooked for at least 24 hours, and every one I have done has come out consistent, basically smoke as long as possible, then finish in the oven, good luck!