How to get more smoke out of a butt recommendations

Egad!   .... not liquid smoke!  Smoke will only penetrate so far in a large piece of meat. Some folks cut roasts into smaller pieces which have two benefits, shorter cooking time and more surface area to collect smoke.

Just my 2¢

.... yes, chunks over chips for sure!  It's like the difference between ice cubes and block ice!

the longer meat is cold, the more smoke RING you get, sure.  but smoke FLAVOR has nothing to do with the smoke ring, or the temp of the meat.  smoke will flavor meat at any point during the cook.  you can add smoke only at the end, and you'd still have smoke flavor, just not a smoke ring.

chips and chunks make no difference (caveat: in an egg, that is, or other airtight system).  if you want a lot of smoke, throughout the cook, make sure your chips or chunks are where the fire will be. the  fire travels DOWN.  not outward, not in a spiral.  build the fire in 'lifts', or small batches of charcoal.  put some at the bottom on the grate. add chips or chunks. more charcoal, more wood.  do this three r four times til the bowl is filled.  after starting, and after the VOCs have blown off (bad smoke) add another chunk or bunch of chips and put the meat in.

if you want a good smoke ring (which has nothing [nothing, nada, zilch] to do with smoke flavor), make sure the meat goes in cold.  as long as it is under 140 at the surface (where the smoke ring forms in the first place) it'll form a smoke ring. 

the smoke, however, will flavor the meat as long as there is smoke.  how much is up to you.  sometimes there's too much, frankly. 

fwiw, smoke isn't absorbed at all. ever.  not beyond any microscopic level, anyway.  it is not possible to have smoke flavor penetrate any meat.  doesn't happen. your pork butt will never be smoky in the interior.

but when you pull it and mix it, the smokey surface will comingle with the rest of the meat.

back to chips/chunks.

give me two chunks that weigh 'x', and a pile of chips that weighs the same:  i hate to say it, but spreading those chips up and down in the middle in a column where the fire is, and where it travels, would give me as much (if not more) as thse two chunks weighing the same amount.  i have used both.  and i find the fire can sometimes leave the chunk behind.  whereas hedging my bets by adding smaller chips throughout (in the middle) has led to many a fire with long continuous wisps of smoke.  just one man's useless opinion

i hook my pork up to a van de graaff generator running very slowly, continually pulling the ions in the smoke to the meat

the whole system needs to be grounded, and it's dangerous in the rain, but i have won many contests with it.  google "stike method van de graaff pork butt"