Cooking a Brisket and Two Pork Butts Together

This coming Friday, I'm cooking a brisket and two pork butts for a wedding reception dinner. I have two Weber WSMs (an 18" and a 22.5"), but I love the 22.5 and want to use it to cook the brisket and butts. I've got plenty of room in there.

However, I've never cooked brisket and butts together. And I'm not sure it's advisable. Could the brisket possibly develop a pork flavor?

If I use the 22.5 to cook all the meat, I was planning on putting the two butts on the bottom rack, and the brisket on top. But what about choice of smoke wood? For brisket, I tend toward oak and apple. For butts, I tend toward a little hickory with pecan and apple.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

A little beef fat dripping on the pork butts isn't going to hurt anything. While you may technically get a small amount of pork flavor landing on the brisket due to evaporation from the butts, I can't imagine any normal person could possibly tell.

I would think the choice of smoke wood would be the biggest conundrum, but even there the vast majority of people are not going to be able to tell any difference. Given your stated preferences, you obviously want some apple. Then it's just a choice of nut woods. I would personally lean toward using the milder woods. Rather too little smoke flavor than too much. This year I've leaned more toward lots of fruit wood and just a little bit of oak or hickory. The flavor seems more subtle but works more with the meat flavor rather than overwhelming it. I've grown quite fond of peach wood with pork. Anyway, whatever you use I can almost guarantee nobody is going to complain about you using the wrong smoke wood.

Congrats to the soon-to-be newlyweds. I don't have a tremendous amount of experience, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. But I've done dozens of shoulders and half a dozen briskets. On all my briskets, they have just simply been a choice grade from a grocery chain and just the flat, at approx 8-9 lbs. While my shoulders have also been in this weight class the first question I would ask of myself is detail about my brisket. On all my 8-9 lb flats they finish HOURS sooner than my historic shoulder cooks, which typically take 12 hours when I run 225-275. So given my little experience I would be inclined to run both smokers if my brisket were just a flat. To date, I've only burned hickory on my briskets and on my shoulders I've burned a variety of other woods but never hickory. But regarding your bottom-line question I cannot really answer because I have never done both simultaneously. I hope you have enjoyable festivities!

I have done them together and it didn't affect the flavor of either. The brisket flavor was pure brisket. Crank up the big guy and only tend one fire. I think they would both taste great with either wood combo. Enjoy the cook.