Apologies for the long post. But this was my first experience doing a
butt and I found it surprising how long it took.

A friend wanted to do a superbowl party and we agreed that it would be
great to have some bbq. I'm pretty new to this, but thought it would be
fun to do a butt overnight in the wsm.

I've done loads of ribs, poultry and salmon, but only one overnight
smoke so far (a brisket, which turned out heavenly).

I got a butt (bone in) from a local butcher which was just under 7 1/2
pounds after trimming excess fat. Before putting it into the pit I
covered it with CYM then a somewhat spicy rub (S&P, garlic & onion
powder, paprika & cayenne).

I used a combo of hickory and cherry for smoke wood.

Put the butt in about 11:00 PM, temperature stabilized about 225 (at the
dome) before going to bed.

Just left it alone untiil about 9:30 AM the next morning - the dome
temperature pretty much stayed between 225 to 250, though it did creep
up to around 270 in the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway, at 9:30 the smoker was opened and the butt turned over and
rotated. Inserted a thermometer probe and found that the temp was pretty
low at this point (around 150).

Monitored the internal temperature from that point on: it was pretty
slow coming up, but I've heard it said that "it's done when it's done"
so we left well enough alone and just watched the temp.

At about 1:30 PM it hit about 180, but based on what I read, I thought
we wanted to get this to about 190 or better, so we kept waiting. Funny
thing happened then: the temperature stabilized and actually went down a
degree or two - and stayed this way for about 2 more hours.

I thought we could probably pull it out, but again thought we might as
well wait: we weren't in a hurry for this and at worst I'll have a
learning experience I'll never forget!

Anyway, at some point (I think it was around 3:30 or so) the temperature
started to climb again. It slowly and steadily increased and around 4:30
I took it out of the pit with an internal temperature of 193.

It was a thing of beauty! I let it rest a while then pulled the meat. It
had a very good smoke ring and lovely bark, and the meat was incredibly
tender.

Served it with slaw and buns and two sauces on the side for anyone who
wanted (one vinegar based and one tomato based).

There were about 12 guests and it was devoured except for a small
portion that I specifically put aside right from the get go.

It was a great experience, but I couldn't believe how long it took.

Could I have pulled the butt off earlier or was I right to leave it
alone till it hit a temperature I wanted?

One other question: when the temperature stabilized (and actually
dropped for a bit) I'm guessing that some tissue is breaking down and
that the chemical reaction requires energy (in the form of heat), thus
explaining why the internal temperature actually dropped and would not
increase for a time. Is that correct?

Thanks for any thoughts/advice!

--
Bill