I know this is bringing an old thread back up, but this is a good topic to discuss every year
I make cold smoke sausage, and also a normal "summer sausage" with heat of about 170 degrees or so in an an electric smoker
in my yard I have a 4x4x8 cold smoker that we built. These sausages are made when its still around freezing outside, has to be cold, and the internal temp of the smokehouse does not exceed like 50 degrees EVER.
They are smoked for about a week with mostly hickory that we harvest ourselfs, sometimes wil throw some apples wood chips in but mostly hickory.
curing for a week while being covered in hickory smoke, its a good thing
I still have some of these in my freezer, might need to get one out, we make large sausages, small sauages, I've done ham in there too