Ahron, don't pull what's left of your hair out.
It can be tricky hot-smoking sausage on a pellet grill, especially during hot weather.
Looking at the 7th picture, it looks like the sausage fatted out, probably from too much heat too quickly.
Here are some adjustments I use to make up for the higher heat that a pellet grill puts out:
- Forget hanging the sausage at room temp to dry before putting it on the smoker. Pat it off with paper towels if needed, but keep it cold until you put it on the smoker.
- DO NOT pre-heat your grill! Turn it on to smoke mode
AFTER you put the sausages on. The cold metal will absorb much of the initial heat acting as a buffer to keep the sausage from being shocked.
- Use the Smoke Mode setting: 165° - 185° F MAX (74° - 85° C), and keep it there the whole time. Do NOT take the temperature higher!!!
Cold sausages + a cold grill + lower heat = the fat heating up slower and not getting shocked.For me it usually takes somewhere around 2 1/2 - 3 hours to hot-smoke sausage to an internal temp of 152° F (67° C) on a pellet grill.
Hope this helps & makes sense.
Cliff
P.S. There are more details here:
How to: Smoke Sausage on a Pellet Grill/Smoker
