Smoking store bought fresh sausage

I really don't know how much of the nitrates & trites they used so its hard to tell if its enough. However, if you're just gonna smoke & eat for a meal, there isn't anything wrong with putting it in the smoker at a t-stat setting of 150- 170. Take it to an internal of about 155 then pour on the peppers & onions and eat away!

Except for the smoke, it would be little different than grilling them by indirect heat.

I'm not sure the strong flavors of fresh Italian benefit by too heavy a smoke.

We do a lot of them at about 200�-220�,to an internal of about 155�.

If we are going to add peppers and onions and reheat,we pull them from the cooker about 145� and reheat all together.

What Tom said--I do this regularly and it's always a big hit.

Taggart,

I agree with the above. The only point to nitrates/nitrites is if you are trying to cold smoke and then store them for a while.

Store bought will often use the nitrates/nitrites as a preservative just for a little margin of safety because of the extra handling that is inherent in sausage making.