I often find myself needing cooked sausage. For biscuits and gravy, usually. For breakfast cups, on occasion. And in dips, for sure. Now usually, I just fry it up in a skillet, but since my smoker was still going strong after making some ribs, I decided to smoke the sausage instead. I crumbled it into a disposable pan and smoked it just long enough to get a slight smokiness to it and for the meat to get fully done.
Great Anytime You Need Sausuage
Because I usually need my sausage in smaller pieces, I ran the final product thru my chopper for just a second. I actually smoked a few pans of breakfast sausage, some hot, some mild, and some crumbled bulk Italian sausage too. Smoked Italian sausage is fantastic on pizza, specially when paired with smoked mozzarella! I also love using my quick fix homemade breakfast sausage.
Draining Advice
You may want to drain the sausage as it cooks, but do so OUTSIDE of the smoker. Do not drain the fat directly onto the coals and you might risk a fire, and not good fire either. You can ladle it out too.
I used maple for this sausage, but nut or fruit woods are great too. You don’t want to overwhelm the sausage with smoke in my opinion.
