Beef brisket

So I made the brisket last night, the first one I've ever attempted. I used my mom's recipe that she got from a Tyler Florence cookbook. It's a braise in red wine at a low temperature for several hours. My first thought was to put a meat thermometer into it and cook it to temperature, since recently I've had a lot better results with red meat that way. But the alarm went off within less than an hour, so it must have been measuring the cooking liquid more than the meat, and I just put on the timer for the amount of time the recipe suggested. I think I should have cut the three-and-a-half hour time down to three hours, as the brisket came out just a wee bit drier than I like. My oven runs a little hot, and the two briskets I cooked were more like three and a half pounds each rather than four as was called for. Also, I would have thought seven pounds would be enough for eleven people, but I wish I'd bought more. Still, it wasn't bad. It's a good recipe-- fabulous when my mom makes it --and I definitely think I will make it again.