Pork Butt

I've done a couple of these and the following are my learning points: 1) my first butt was started the night before and all was going well... Checked on it every couple of hours... At 530am the alarm on my digital wireless thermometer went off on my bed stand that the meat was 200 degrees. Long story short, when I closed the dome at my 2am check, I didn't realize that the top wheel was completely open and the dome temp was 375. Moral: don't drink so much grilling beer and don't be sleepy when you go check (I spray with apple juice every check) 2) the wireless digital thermometer mentioned above has been great. I think mines a relatively-inexpensive one i got from target and has a good range with a programmable alarm. Just leave the probe in the meat the whole time. Like they say, if you're looking, you ain't cooking. 3) I do 225 degrees so that if it's cooking slow the following morning, I can always turn up to 275-300 to make it done in time to pull, cooler, and serve for dinner. Momma Bear gets cranky when dinner is late. Could cook hotter at 250-275 but I know how painful it is to get too hot and finish hours too early (see number 1 above) 4) I like apple chips for the smoke, slather the butt with mustard before seasoning, and use Corky's rub. I also spray with apple juice every 2 hours or so. Make sure whatever chips/chunks you use are disseminated evenly through your charcoal. I'm always amazed at how frugal the BGE is with charcoal, and if all your chips are away from the fire, they won't smoke. My last butt went 19 hours (again, I'm a low-and-slow guy), and it didn't even use half the charcoal in the firebox. 5) temps can get out of control in a hurry. When you light the charcoal, don't get a roaring fire and hope to cool off. Rather, get some embers and carefully and slowly adjust inlet and outlet vents to reach smoke temp. It gets hotter much easier than cooler, and use micro-increments for the vents. We're not talking much air to keep a small fire burning, and if I find myself opening more than a millimeter at a time or if I ever feel the need to open the bottom vent more than a quarter inch or so, I re-evaluate.