Cooking Temp Too Hot, you have More Heat than Smoke
What would you suggest? Again new to smoking meats. Not trying to get shamed by the experts.
Ha. You are going to get shamed. Don't worry, it ain't personal, everyone does.
225-250 F is plenty, low and slow is best for me
There's nothing wrong with 225. I run mine at 250 for a bit, but I'm usually doing an 8 to 10 pounder. 4 pounds is small and perfect for feeding less people. But it doesn't need nearly as long when half the size.
For 4 pounds, I would run at 225, start at 10am, and anticipate it'll be done between 3 and 5pm. I pull mine off at 203 it so, and let rest for an hour or two before pulling.
Double triple check your pit temps, by the look of your bark and the fact that its dry and tough, seems more like it was 275-300. Grill therms and controllers can be wildly inaccurate. I made that mistake once. You can also foil, "texas crutch" after the bark develops to help get through the stall and keep it moist, at the cost of some bark texture.
I've Mastered my pork butts and I'll tell you exactly what I do.... Follow this. And it'll come out perfect.... Take yellow mustard lather The whole pork butt...then pack it with your dry rub.... Put it on the smoker cold at 225 preferably 250... After about 2 hours in a smoker, spray it with 100%. Apple juice...spray it down about every hour...at an international temp of 170-175 pull it....wrap it in tin foil or Butcher paper....before wrapping make sure you spray it with the apple juice again...put it back in the smoker till internal temp is 205....take it out and let it rest wrapped....some say about an hr....i never do though because im pressed for time and still is awesome....but some say wrap in a towel "of course still in the tin foil or Butcher paper" and place in a cooler for an hr..... also make sure your water pan is filled through out the whole process....the bone should pull out clean and you should be able to completely break it down by hand.....wrapping it at 175 is key....it will be so juicy