Need Tips on Smoking Boston Butt

We use a stabbing tenderizer that we got from bass pro shop.....has about 20 spikes about a inch and a half long....DW gets all her frustrations out when preparing meat....lol.....flavor goes all the way thru and so far is cut with fork tender and not dry....most times we will do marinade or cook over open fire. We butterfly chickens and turkeys and smoke with whatever wood available...it all seems to be good.....course we deal mostly with meats 3 - 4 inches thick....and the smoke is always in every part.....we use the adjustable grate we got from bass pro also....it came with 2 ft rod, but I got 4 ft so can start everything even with full flame fire it rotates 360 degrees so you can tend you meat not directly over fire and adjust as flame goes down to nothing...
to keep it temp you want.....a lot of the time it seems way too smokey for me, but DW likes it that way....not saying way smokey is bad, sometime like to taste just meat flavor....if bone is issue, then just have butcher saw the roast in the thickness you need.....that way cooking time is less and flavor is better.....good luck with whatever solution you find.....on a butterfly chicken cooking time about an hour and it has best brown crunchy skin you can imagine and will fall off the bone.....without even stabbing and smoke all the way thru.

With my vertical gas smoker it takes 10-11 hours to get done enough to pull the meat. i think you need to start much earlier. I also spray apple cider vinegar during smoking, adds to flavor.

I want to try smoking in the smoker for 4-6 hours and finishing in the crock pot. I did a portion of a bone in butt with one of the McCormick flavoring pouches and it was delicious.

You don't say what kind of smoke you were producing. I like a thick smoke until about 150 degrees. Wrapping the meat during the finish, from 150 for me, and letting it rest wrapped for about 30 minutes after it hits the 190-200 temp helps a lot. Wrapping for the finish keeps the moisture in and the rest allows the juices to be drawn back in as it cools, taking some smoke with it.

Depends on your cooker. I use a Big Green Egg and get plenty of smoke flavor. Leave butt out and let it come to room temp before you put it on the smoker.

Good luck

I smoke my butts with a mix of pecan and hickory wood cut from saplings about 2 or 3 inch diam and a length of 6 inches or so. I start the smoker with charcoal. After I have a good charcoal fire going I put 2 or 3 chunks of well soaked wood on top of it. Every hour or so I poke the fire and add charcoal and wood chunks as needed. By the end of the day I usually end up with mostly wood and very little charcoal. I try to smoke 8 to 9 hours. I then take the meat into the house and wrap in a double layer of heavy duty alum foil and bake in slow oven ( I mean like 300 degrees) until the meat tests at 208 to 210. Now a couple of things. You may want to do this the day before you need it for obvious reasons. I also have access to my own wood to cut the year before. You can find chunk wood if you look around. I would never waste my time on the little shaving stuff it just burns up to quick. This meat will fall apart and taste like heaven. Almost forgot to mention for the drip pan I use a mix of apple juice and rootbeer soda,

Hickory isn't the mildest smoke by any means but you might also try some stronger smoke woods. Do you finish your butt with a finishing sauce? This is one way to get more flavor on all the pulled meat. Finishing sauces usually include some rub, vinegar and a light sauce.

With big chunks of meat I inject it with the smoke flavor and cook it low and slow.
I find that keeping the smoke in my charcoal smoker really helps too.

I'm not a pro but the type of smoker makes a difference. I use an electric smoker and it just doesn't put out enough smoke for that "deep" smokiness.