Looking for tips for smoking sausage in electric smoker

Is he curing (adding sodium nitrite) the andouille? If he’s not, you’re just having cooked fresh sausage.

Smoke around 250-275, will take 3-5 hours. Internal temp should be 155-160 and you’re good.

Optional: After smoking, have a big bowl of ice water, dump the sausage in the ice water to cool it. This helps with food safety (getting the temp out of the range where bacteria like to grow) and helps prevent the casing from shriveling as well.

If he’s curing it and you use the Amazin Smoker, you want to cold smoke. The only heat is from the pellet tube. This results in an uncooked smoked sausage like you would buy at the meat market and is what you want for gumbo. I recommend pecan and oak pellets.

It’s what you buy at store. Almost none of it is “cooked”. Cooked pork is typically brought to 140F plus. Cold smoked is between 50-90F. Which is why it’s cured ( prevents bacterial growth in the “danger zone” of 45-120F). Lots of good cold smoke info on the webs. Cold smoked and smoked are two completely different animals.

Very

Smoked sausage Is fully cooked when packaged. Just like a smoked ham or hot dogs are fully cooked in the package, you basically just need to heat it up.

quote:

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If he’s curing it and you use the Amazin Smoker, you want to cold smoke.

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Bull shite!!
I make my own cured hot smoked sausage. Start with a low temp 110/120 increase slowly till 150. Get the sausage to a temp of 150 and then submerge in ice bath to cool. Once cool hang at room temp. for several hours (I do overnite) to bloom....gives the skins nice color.

You can cook it at any temp, if you want to start low, go for it. The nitrite stops bacteria from growing while it’s cooking at the low temp. The reason you raise the temp is to finally get the internal temp up. Have fun with it and try different times and temps, find which one you like. Your cooking temp and method is not going to produce a big difference in final product, but it will vary a little. Don’t let anyone tell you it “has to be done” a certain way.

As far as wood, the same concept applies: experiment and have fun. Hickory is the leading wood in sausage processing. In the old days, people used whatever wood they had available (oak, pecan, etc), so recipes varied by region because of that reason. Personally, I never pass up hickory. Oak or pecan would be my 2a and 2b choices.

What wood would be best for a traditional smoked andouille? Pecan?

Per USDA:

It is very important that cooling be continuous through the given time/temperature control points. Excessive dwell time in the range of 130° to 80°F is especially hazardous, as this is the range of most rapid growth for the clostridia. Therefore cooling between these temperature control points should be as rapid as possible.

1. During cooling, the product's maximum internal temperature should not remain between 130°F and 80°F for more than 1.5 hours nor between 80°F and 40°F for more than 5 hours. This cooling rate can be applied universally to cooked products (e.g., partially cooked or fully cooked, intact or non-intact, meat or poultry) and is preferable to (2) below.

That's the reason for the cure...prevents bacteria growth.