meat temp plateaued 4 hours into 8-10 hour smoke

You hit the stall. It happens.

Doesn't seem unusual.  I've seen stalls for two hours.  More common than not in my experience.  My last brisket, a 7 lb'er, didn't stall until 167F and that's the highest stall temp I've seen.  Only stalled for about an hour too.

Different meat but I did a 6lb shoulder this past weekend.  It stalled at 147, the lowest stall temp I've seen.  It was stalled for an hour before I realized it was stalled because it was so low.  Wrapped it and it stayed there for almost another hour.  In another thread I said it was done in 6 hours, but my wife reminded me my math was off.  It was 7 and I was smoking at 275F.  After I wrapped it I cranked the temp up to over 300F.  Expected it to get done between 5-6 hours and surprised it took as long as it did.  That's meat for ya!    

I had a pork butt stall for over 2 hours at 180 degrees.

DWGSmoke said:

 
Thanks to all for the replies!  I really appreciate the help and will just have to learn to be patient...

Click to expand...

One option is to be patient and just crack open a beer.  Other options are to A:) wrap the meat in foil at that point to help power through the stall, B:) crank up the temp to power through the stall, and C:)   do a combination of both A and B and still drink another beer.