How to make do with vegan, naked fatties?

I have a post about this on Cooking.se and am going to put a bounty on it in a few hours.

Starting with what I wrote so far:

I would like to make naked fatties on the barbeque this weekend, but want to accomodate some vegan friends (and my on/off lacto-ovo wife). I can easily swap regular pork breakfast sausage for Gimme Lean, some other brand, or homemade. Ideally, I would like to have a hearty protein/nutritional medium at the end that is full of smoky flavor and could be used in other dishes too (i.e. chili, soup, casseroles).

come on, as if you didn't already know it was a great idea...So basically there are a few questions that remain. Most center around the fact that smoking sausage is not the same as smoking TVP or rice. If you've ever put veggie burgers, brats, etc on the grill at the same time as their meaty counterparts and ended up with hockey pucks you know what I'm referring to.

First, I want to ensure that the cooking process seals in all the tasty goodness of the vegan chub. Second, I want to ensure that the vegan chub gets nice and smokey. So, since the control in this experiment will be the meaty chub, how should I construct the experimental set? Basically prep will be the same.

It occurs to me that a pre-soak might be in order for the chub; but this idea worries me in that I am not sure TVP would like that very much. Perhaps wrapping it in swaddling clothes and aluminum foil gates would help keep the heat more indirect? I am not sure. If I do two chubs, I will do soak and non-soak. Another problem is my lack of a probe thermometer - I will need to track one down. Unfortunately, the BBQ sauce I just bought is not vegan (anchovies in the worcestshire sauce), so I will need to remember to shelve that one for the non-meat eaters.

Nonetheless - vegans, vegetarians, omnivores; lend me your comments and clues! (Save your secrets for your selves.) I hope to have cooked these by the weekend, or thereabouts. I will follow up with analysis of the results and a review. Hopefully, these will yield a recipe!

Update on 3:49PM by mfg

Here's a link from Vegan Dad (recommended by my friend Nate) that might help insofar as, instead of steaming on the stove, I just smoke it on the grill after applying rub

Update on 10:25AM by mfg

follow-up: cashew cheese hot pepper cream sauce... amirite!!