I like to take out the sausage from the refrigerator about 30-45 min prior to smoking to allow the meat to get as close to room temp as possible. It also allows the casings to dry up a little and absorb more smoke during the smoking process.
It's always a good idea to pre-heat the smoker, how you do it depends on the smoker that you have. Based on previous experience and research, the recommended temperature for cooking sausage is 160-170. Make sure that your wood chips are already in the unit as well if that is what you are using. This also allows the wood chips to warm up and be that much closer to smoking at the very beginning.
In cooler weather the pre-heating process is vital to a timely smoking process.
DURING
After putting in the sausage, it's time to sit back and relax. Well the relaxing part depends on the type of smoker that you have. If you have a built in thermometer, that's good. If you have a built in internal meat thermometer that's best. Now if you have a little remote that tells you the temperature inside the smoker as well as inside the meat then you have a sweet deal.
Recommended internal temperature of sausage is around 150-155 *F.
My average smoking time is around 4 hrs. But with 30-40lbs of sausage it does take me all day and sometimes well into the night.
I refill the water pan and wood chip pan about 3-4 times.
Immediately after taking the sausage out of the smoker I have a ice cold water bath standing near-by and I set the whole sausage in it for about 5 seconds. Then I set it on a kitchen towel or paper towels.
I let it sit for about 3-4 hrs before I wrap it and put it into the refrigerator. It can stay in the fridge for about 2 wks. If you know that you won't eat it in that time period, get it into the freezer as soon as possible. It will spoil at around 3 weeks if not stored in the freezer.
When freezing, using a vacuum-sealer or freezer paper and plastic bag for longer preservation.
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