Sausage 'n Eggs

In the vernacular, I'm smoking a couple naked fatties. It started with 8 hard boiled eggs so I can make Raichlen's Smoked Egg Salad. Not wanting to fire up the smoker - even the mini - for only four eggs, I'm doubling the recipe. And besides, SWMBO likes HB eggs so I think she'll like this. Even eight eggs leaves plenty of room on the cooker so I ran out to the store and got a couple of tubes of breakfast sausage to smoke as well.

Weather is chilly at 26° F with wind moderate, reported at 15 mph (but not really noticeable.) The sky has a light overcast. Overall, not a bad day to smoke (once I get the smoker thawed out. ;) )

I boiled the eggs last night using Alton Brown's strategy (start in cold water, bring to boil, cover for 15 minutes and then chill to stop cooking.) They peeled fairly easily. The fatties took no more prep than removing the plastic packaging.

I'm cooking this in the mini on the top grate only. I'm using a new stainless water bowl for the first time. The old one developed some holes again. I bought one listed as "heavy duty" on the Amazon web site. We'll see how it lasts. I'm using briquettes left over form a previous smoke (an undocumented smoke of some moinks.) I used some apple wood for smoke wood. I stuck the meat probe from the ET-732 in a fattie and I'll use it to monitor cooker temp as well. Eggs will come out based on color,

time	temp	comment
11:00 AN		Sausage and eggs on!
11:26	101°/212°/200° meat/grate/lid	Eggs golden - they're off!
11:44	138°/214°/?
12:18	160°/214°/?	Ready to come off? No! bleeding all over the plate so I put them back on.
12:50	156°/219°/?	Meat still recovering from coming off the grill for a couple minutes.
1:09	169°/225°/	This time meat is not bleeding as it rests.

The eggs had a nice tan color that permeated about 1/8" into the egg. The egg salad was really simple and the smoky flavor cane through nicely. It was not subtle nor was it overbearing. Apple is the wood to use for hard boiled eggs!

Sausage took on a nice color and had a good smoke ring.

They did not seem to shrink as much as I would have expected. I suppose they still have most of their fat. Flavor was very good with a nice smoke flavor. Apple was good but almost too subtle for the highly seasoned sausage. So far I've only tasted one (likely the sage) but I'm sure the other will be just as good.

The only thing to consider doing differently might be to add some hickory for the pork. I'm not sure I'd like to do that for the eggs.