Smoking Sausage in FEC100?

If you're trying to dry them without smoke, you can't in the FE. You have to burn wood to generate the heat; wood creates smoke.

Why no smoke?

Tell me how you do it in your 55 and I'll see if I can help.

Which FE do you have, the IQ4?

Smokin
What I normally do in the 55 is run it with no wood in the box for the first 1-2 hours at temp of 100*. I also crack the door open to help moisture escape. When the casings feel dry to the touch I then put wood in the box and slowly raise temps over the next few hours not to exceed about 175*. The key is to cook/smoke the meat without rendering the fat to a temp around 155-160.

The smoke won't penetrate the casings until they are dry. And from my experience if I add smoke when they are still wet I get an odd (acrid)taste to the sticks.

I've got the IQ4 controller. What I might try is to crack the door on the FEC while the controller is set at it's lowest (I think it's 140). This should allow the cabinet to heat up but also would allow some smoke to escape.

Any thoughts? Thanks

I just done a batch in my FEC and I hung them up left the door open and put a fan on them for about an hour. I got this tip from Dave at The Charcoal Store. Worked like a charm. Here is the link and if you go to the bottom of the page there is a link to polish sausage also.
http://www.charcoalstore.com/kb/article.php?id=006

PS these did have a cure in it.

Since my orignal post I have smoked a few batches of sausage using the FEC and things have gone well. I cracked the door open and set the temp at the lowest and tried to maintain about 100 degees for an hour.

DMassey- When you have the door open and a fan blowing I assume the smoker isn't actually running at that point is it?

No thats just to dry out the casings and when they are dry just close the door and fire of the smoker.