re: Who here makes their own sausage?

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Is a decent meat grinder with a sausage attachment sufficient?

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If you have a kitchen aid mixer, their grinder is fine if you are sticking to batches 25# or less.

A good stand alone stuffer is a must. I tried the attachments for both kitchen aid and LEM grinders and they were terrible. LEM makes a great stuffer and it will last forever. I have recently picked up this guy Hakka Stuffer. So far it has worked really well but I've only made up a 100 pounds of sausage so the verdict is still out.

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What type of casings do you use and where do you source them?

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I've used both hog and collagen casings and I much prefer the collagen. Not as tough and the meat seems to stay in links better. The last batch of hog casings I used was so tough they were basically inedible. Lucky it was boudin so no huge loss on the casing but I couldn't sear and eat the casing if I wanted to.

Casings are hard for me to locally source but amazon seems to carry a pretty good selection if you are using a small order. Any of the online meat supply houses will carry stuff cheaper if ordering a ton but their shipping is killer on small orders.

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For smoked sausages can you get a decent product from an electric smoker.?

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Yes you can, spend a bit more time to form a proper pellicle and you can get great results in an electric. I may actually prefer it for most sausages.

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Will an inexpensive electric smoker make a decent smoky andouille?

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Smoking sausages is really forgiving. You'll be fine.