Your brisket stalled. That is normal. Here is the fuel math.

People search "brisket stall," "stall temp," and "stalled at 160." The meat is sweating. Moisture at the surface is dumping heat as fast as the cooker is putting it in, so the probe graph flattens. Common reports put that plateau somewhere around 150 to 170 F internal. That is a forum range, not a PelletDeck rule and not a doneness target.

How long it lasts depends on humidity, airflow, bark, and whether you wrap. Two hours happens. Six hours happens. The clock is why overnight cooks miss the hopper, not because the stall is mysterious.

PelletDeck does not decide when the stall ends. The calculator estimates hours and pellets. The default brisket profile already tries to leave room for a stall. A 12 lb packer at 225 F is about 16 hours 30 minutes and about 14.4 lb on the generic seed. Open that ride-it-out scenario.

Wrap versus ride it out is an hours change

There is no wrap toggle. Wrapping usually shortens the evaporative window, so the cook finishes sooner and the pellet load drops. Riding it out keeps the long overnight assumption. You model the difference by changing the inputs that actually exist: set point, or the hot-and-fast brisket profile.

Keep the same 12 lb packer and only flip the dial to 250 F. Hours fall to about 15 hours 5 minutes. Pellets on the generic seed go to about 14.9 lb because the fire is working harder. Same packer at 250 F.

If you are treating wrap plus a hotter cook as a different job, use the hot-and-fast brisket protein. A 12 lb cook at 275 F on that profile is about 6 hours 24 minutes and about 7.3 lb. Open hot-and-fast brisket at 275 F. Texture and bark will not match a 225 F overnight. That is the trade you are buying, not a free hopper save.

225 vs 275 is the setpoint comparison with the overnight profile held still. Use that when you are only turning the knob. Use this page when the question is "do I wrap or sit here until 4 a.m."

Hopper risk while it sits

A stall does not burn extra pellets by magic. It burns them by adding time at the same set point. If you were already near empty on paper, those extra hours are the refill.

A 14 lb packer on a Pro 575 at 225 F is about 19 hours and about 17.5 lb against an 18 lb hopper. Ride the stall in January and it gets worse. Same cook with the winter toggle wants about 36 lb. The fire dies because the tank is empty, not because the stall "won."

A 40 lb hopper changes the sleep math more than a wrap debate does. The same 12 lb, 225 F cook on an RT-700 still takes all night. It does not take the whole hopper. Compare listed hopper sizes in the grill database.

What this page will not tell you

It will not tell you when the brisket is safe or tender. Color, stall time, and a PelletDeck hour estimate are not doneness. Use a probe. Official safe minimum internals live on the food-safety disclaimer, which points at USDA / FSIS charts. Brisket is often cooked past those published minimums for texture. That is a tenderness choice after you have already passed the safety line. It is not a PelletDeck pull temp.

If you came here asking how many pounds the whole cook needs, start with how many pounds of pellets. The methodology page has the exact exponents.