One thing I have picked up is that apparently these smokers are pretty picky about wood. I am planning on smoking a pork butt. The only wood I have on hand is from a big box store. I don't have time to order and receive any wood from any of the recommended providers. Any tips for using wood from big box stores?
Meh... don't worry about it too much. I use junk box store (home depot and ace hardware) wood in my #2 and it works just fine. I put down a thick piece of foil in the bottom of the smoke box and poked smaller holes in it than the ones in the box. I never have my wood ignite and it smokes/smells great. I've had no problems with the quality of anything I smoke with this wood.
Another thing I have picked up but would like to confirm is that the 3.5 smokers require more wood than the #1 or #2 models. Is there a good rule of thumb as to how much? i.e.- perhaps double the recommended amount for #1 & #2 models? Any suggestions on how much big box store wood to use for a pork butt?
There's no need to use more wood due to the smoker model/size... it fills the volume of the smoker, smokes the food, and then comes out the smoke hole. The volume difference of the smoker is insignificant in the overall scheme of things.
I like a pretty strong smoke flavor, so I probably use more wood than what some do. If you consider the definition of a 'chunk' of wood to be the size of an old toy alphabet block then I'll use 4-5 blocks when I do butts. (I always do butts in pairs because that's how I buy them and then just vac seal and freeze most of it for future consumption.)
Separate but related, I have seen references to aluminum boats for wood. Can someone please clarify exactly what that is? My perception is that wood chunks are placed in foil but not completely covered up by the foil. Is that correct?
You have the right idea... though I find it much easier to just foil the bottom of the smoke box as described above and it achieves the same effect. You're just limiting the oxygen flow to/around the wood so that it won't combust. The boats you'd probably throw out every time whereas I rarely change the foil doing it my way.