I also have the Pit Boss Vertical Smoker and made Summer Sausage this past weekend up here in Wisconsin. It was around 28 out so the smoker did struggle. Like the guys said crack the door open and set it at 150 for an hour first. I have a Therma Pro unit and I use two probes with it, one for Ambient that sits way up in the top of the smoker and the other one goes into a stick of the summer sausage on the back wall. I use the Pitboss probe in one of the sticks closer to the glass. So that gives me four probes, two for the meat and two ambients counting the builtin probe. I did a 20-pound batch. The other note for you that I have is that from the top to the bottom is about a 25-30 Degree difference. It took around 10 hours to get the meat to 135 Degrees then I actually finished in the oven at 180 for about 2 and half hours then ice bath right when it hit 160. The product turned out great. Can’t wait for summer so the smoker doesn’t have such a difference in temp from top to bottom.

My smoke schedule was tricky with the weather but I let the sausage hang in my shed overnight first. But I set the unit at 150 for 2 hours, “added automotive sponges soaked and an inch of water to the pan” then set it to175 for 2 hours, 200 for 6 hours. But like I said it was cold out and the internal unit would sit around 150-200, bouncing back and forth. The top of the unit never hit above 200. IMG_0879.JPG.