Thanks for the information on water bath for sausages. I agree, and feel the risk is not worth just throwing the sausage in the water without placing them in bags and removing the air.
I have my plan pretty well mapped out, but I ran into a couple of snags, so I hope I can begin my test tomorrow. Sometimes strange things happen. I belong to a regional barbecue society, and as part of that I receive a monthly publication "Barbecue News". It arrived yesterday, and one of the articles is "Sous Vide Que Techniques"; written by Meathead of AmazingRibs.com. I don't always agree with what he says, but I'm going to read the article to see what he says, and head over to that site to see if he has any information specific to spare ribs.