Adventures in Meat Smoking

So I got this smoker. I've been wanting to start smoking briskets, ribs, pork shoulders, etc for years. Now I have the means. And tonight I'm putting words into action, by god. My wife picked up a good looking brisket rub at Pendery's today. I went to Costco to grab up a cryovac Brisket, but apparently everyone in the metroplex is smoking briskets this weekend and they were stone out. So on to Albertson's where they only had two left. I picked, of course, the biggest.

I get it trimmed up, and get the rub on, and now it's time for the fire. In reality, it was time for the fire well before this other stuff. It's the fire that's killing me. I've chopped up a bunch of pecan that fell over my fence from my neighbor's tree, so I'm good on fuel. But I'm aiming for a fire at about 225 and this son of a bitch was hot enough to forge metal. It's been burning for hours and it's still too damn hot. Of course I already put the brisket on 45 minutes ago.

Now I'm just hoping that thing will cool off a bit and I can add another log before I go to bed in a few hours.

Any advice is more than welcome... As I'm sure all the readership will be waiting with bated breath to hear about the condition of my meat, I'll shoot an update tomorrow.