Smoking hints...
Let's see. Are you going to hang your sausage, or lay it flat?
Hanging will give you a more consistent smoke. You need to hang it from stainlees steel rods. Just kind of 'loop' the sausage over the poles. You don't 'really' need to twist it in to links. You can do that, but it just adds an extra step, doesn't really do anything for the process.
Your 'cure' that you added...? Explain that to me. Normally you don't add a cure to meat that is going to be hot smoked. Odd that you did that. nothing really wrong with that, just probably not a necessary part of the process.
You do understand that this sausage, through this smoking process is going to be 'cooked' meat. It will not be a 'cured' or safe to be left unrefrigerated meat, right?
Cook it as slow as you can. Remember, water boils at 214 or less, depending upon altitude. Excess heating during the smoking process is going to dry your sausage. You want these to be plump and juicy, go sloooooow. 180-200 max temp.
Don't get crazy on the smoke. 12-18 with smoke is going to be alot of smoke. I recommend an electric element to generate your heat, and use your wood chips sparingly.
A good tasting, smoked sausage, to have the right texture takes some time. You do NOT want to just fire the smoker up to 350 and cook it for 45 minutes. The process, done corectly, means you allwo the meats to slowly cook (and tenderize) while remaining moist (low heat) and tender casings (not crispy and crunchy)
Hope that helps.
TRG