I have built a few electric smokers over the years, but have not done any recently.
My old upright freezer died a couple of weeks ago, and it has the makings of a pretty decent meat smoker, I think.
It is insulated of course, and has a metal interior. The door shelving is plastic and would need to go. That could be replaced with sheet metal.

I don’t really NEED another meat smoker, but I have a hard time resisting the urge to hack.

I put it up to the community for a vote: Thumbs up: meat smoker. Thumbs down: landfill.

I reserve ultimate veto power. lol

I am talking about cleaning and sanitation. (Yawn). Before you fall asleep or move on, here is why I am kind of OCD about cleaning. I spent a few years working Summers in the family sausage business. Cleaning and sanitation is HUGE, and literally can mean the difference between staying open or being shut down at an inspected commercial processing plant.

For most home processors, keeping our equipment and work space clean is about improving flavor, quality, and shelf life of the products you make. It also is about food safety, and making products that don’t have dangerous food-borne pathogens that could make you or others sick. Just because you cooked a product up to 160 degrees, does not mean it can’t make someone sick. Last of all, clean and well maintained equipment just works better.

When you think about cleaning work surfaces, start to think about anything that could directly or indirectly make contact with the meat. That includes your hands, by the way.

Anyone who has made sausage has probably observed how dried emulsified meat is like glue and is a real pain to get off of equipment. If you are working alone, do yourself a favor and as soon as you are finished with a piece of equipment, or a processing tub, rinse off the big chunks with the hottest water you have. Hot water is one of the best things I have found that can melt the fat and loosen the protein from surfaces. If the water is too hot for your hands, wear disposable rubber gloves.

Once you have the chunks off, you can go back later when you are all finished and scrub the rest off with a soap, hot water, and minimal effort to finish the clean up. Once the heavy gunk has dried on, it is much more difficult to remove.

Another thing that simplifies clean up is to use a plastic scraper to remove all the excess meat off of equipment before wash down. This does a couple of things: It reduces the amount of cleaners required and keeps the meat out of your sink or wash basin. In general, meat and fat in your drains is going to lead to problems sooner or later

If you are working with helpers, it can greatly simplify cleaning if someone can start washing down a piece of equipment as soon as you are done using it for the day. This allows the clean up to start before any meat residue begins to dry and reduces the time and effort involved. Depending on your processing area, you probably can use the space created by cleaning up and putting away dirty equipment sooner rather than later.
My favorite cleaner is a strong alkaline cleaner called Greased Lightening and it cuts fat and even smoke house/grill residue better than most other normal house-hold cleaners.
After you get everything cleaned up and dried, figure out a storage system that keeps it clean till the next time you use it. Equipment stored out in the open on the shelf in the garage or basement is going to accumulate dirt and grunge. Store your clean equipment in a tote with a lid or cover it with plastic film till you are ready to use it again.

Kind of just scratching the surface here. There have been whole books written on the topic of cleaning and sanitation. Would be interested to hear some of your own cleaning tricks.

Photo of my small removable equipment parts after wash down. The big stationary items have to be washed down on the carts and tables they operate on.

This morning I cranked out 10 lbs of weissewurst. This one is an all-pork product which deviates from the traditional form that includes veal, but currently veal has me priced out of the market.
All-pork weisswurst is still really good!

After grinding and mixing in seasonings, the batter goes in the bowl chopper for emulsification.

When chopping is done its on to stuffing and linking. I used hog casing on these.

I poached these in hot water, with a cold water rinse and then rest overnight in the frig for packaging tomorrow.

Had some good luck today when I harvested this tom while bow hunting. He came running in to my call and I got a quick shot off. I thought I made a bad hit when he flew off but he only went about 50 yards before landing. Several other toms and jakes went after him after seeing he was wounded. Turkeys will definitely beat up on a wounded bird. It was all over for him within a few minutes.

Looks like I finally get a chance to use the Walton’s turkey cure I bought last year and then never shot a turkey to use it on in 2022.

With inspiration and guidance from Deepwoodsbutcher and others here, my friend and I bought a live hog from a local producer and slaughtered it today.
The hog was larger than I would have preferred at #295 lbs live weight, mainly from a logistics and handling standpoint, but the actual slaughter went pretty well.
I threw together a small confinement stall on my utility trailer for transporting the pig to our hunting cabin. We have a good assortment of processing facilities there for butchering deer which helped a lot.
Probably the biggest issue we had was skinning the hog which we chose to do while it was hanging. Overall it went pretty well. It took longer than we anticipated. We did use the winch on an ATV to help with the skinning and we were glad to have it.
After skinning, gutting and splitting, we transported the halves back home to my outbuilding to chill overnight and plan to break them down tomorrow morning.
The hog was pretty chill about the whole thing which made putting him down quickly and humanely much easier.

Made 10 lbs each of my summer sausage and Excalbur Kielbasa from Walton’s .
We used 50:35:15 lean venison, pork trimmings, pork fat for both.

The pay-off.
This afternoon I arrowed this guy. He did me the courtesy of going down within sight of my stand. Since I am colorblind and a poor blood trailer, this really helps out.

Cured, smoked wild turkey breast. Used Walton’s turkey cure. The ingredients include maple syrup, but that flavor flew completely under my radar. Aside from that detail, it turned out great.

Natural casing weisswurst yesterday and Canadian bacon today.

Fried softshell crab and shrimp. Collard greens, fresh cucumber salad, and killer homemade bread.

Just posting some pictures of recent deer butchering.
The deer was shot 36 hours ago and field dressed at that time. The carcass hung overnight in 28 degree outdoor temperatures and was just starting to freeze in some of the smaller parts.
The following morning (24 hours ago) I skinned it, cut out the back straps and quartered it before carrying it home and putting it in the refrigerator.
At this point, all the quarters and trim on this doe that fit in a single heaping full meat lug. As a point of comparison, the buck I shot earlier filled up 2 and 1/2 meat lugs.
This morning I broke down the hind quarters as pictured. There are many methods for doing this. Some guys will even bone out the entire deer while it is still hanging.
I am not really set up for that and do better with more conventional methods that allow me to work as much as I want and then take a break for a while.
Everyone has a process they like. This one work pretty good for me. YMMV.

Here is picture with the pelvis, femur, and shank bone removed from the hindquarter.

Next is a picture of the main muscle groups separated from the hindquarter.

Next is a picture of the muscle groups with some of the silverskin, larger tendons, and most of the fat trimmed.

This is normally where I stop with hind quarter roasts. The shank meat on the far left goes in with the sausage trimmings meat.
The hind quarter roasts are wrapped and frozen, ready for use as pastrami meat, or whole muscle jerky projects.

Next up are whole back straps as trimmed off the hanging deer carcass. Also pictured below are the inner or “Hanging tenders” tenderloins. Probably the most delicious and tender part of a deer. They are delicate an dry out quickly. Best removed immediately while field dressing. These got removed the following morning and are already beginning to darken on the exposed side.

Not too much to do here. Trim off some silver skin and then I slice into chunks about the right size for cooking or grilling for two people. I use a fillet knife to get most of the outer silverskin off. I like to leave primals in the largest size possible and do all final slicing prior to cooking. My theory is that uncut meat just freezes and store better.

Next they get vacuum sealed, dated and labeled.

Front should deboning: I left the bone in the shanks for some osso buco . The rest gets boned out, fat and blood shot trimmed away and reserved for sausage or other grinding.
One of the shoulder blades took a direct hit from my arrow (2-blade Rage mechanicals tip). The arrow passed through the should blade bone, caught the top of the onside lung, took out the offside lung, and passed through the off-side rib cage. I am always checking the wound channels on deer I take, but won’t be posting pictures in the interest of decorum.

Didn’t cook them (cuz they are raw). But man they were good.

Once every couple of years I like to make some jaternice (pronounced eater-nit-see).
WTH is that, you ask?
Every culture has a few sausage types intended for using up the leftovers from hog butchering. Eastern Europeans and specifically the Czech’s version of this sausage is jaternice.
For a lot of people, these sausages, and their ingredients, were considered “cheap cuts” and food that people of modest means ate. True, but they were also nutritious, tasty, and wholesome.

In various parts of the Midwest, Czech immigrants settled and brought their sausage making traditions with them. Traditionally made of pork offal, pork head meat, a cereal, and seasoning, jaternice is considered an uncured cooked liver sausage that is ready-to-eat. It can be served cold, or heated and browned in a skillet (my favorite). It makes a nice breakfast meat served with eggs and toast.
Served cold it has a firm texture from all the natural gelatin in the head meat. When it is heated, it has a loose pudding-like texture.
Our family grew up eating and liking foods like this which we made in the family sausage business.
Here are pictures of how I did it.
Ingredients: Pork snouts, pork liver, pork butt, bread and seasoning.

The liver is poached for 10 minutes and the other meats are simmered for 2 hours.
Unrelated Bonus Question: What do diving pigs look like when they come up for air?

The cooked meats are allowed to cool, cubed up and ground.

The bread is cubed up and mixed with the ground meats, seasonings, and kettle broth.

After mixing, I stuffed in large hog casings and tied them into rings. Cooking was done in a large meat lug using 180 degree water until an I.T. of 152 degrees was reached.
This was followed by a cold water bath and refrigerating overnight.

Beautiful afternoon that just begged for firing up the grill. Loaded up with charcoals and a couple chunks of dry oak.
The guest of honor was this tomahawk steak. Did a sear on both sides and then indirect heat under cover till the IT hit 128 degrees. A couple of weisswurst came along for the ride.
Served up with baked potatoes and Asian broccoli with some fresh fruit for desert.

Smoked a cured belly today. I have a bone-in ham curing and a ham shank as well which need to be smoked in a few days.

Mixed grill tonight. Country pork ribs marinated in cajun seasonings, fresh chorizo, and venison/pork smoked sausage.

This morning I did a couple of 5 lb test batches for two cured smoke sausage recipes. Both use the same meat block 5:3:2 venison, pork butt, pork fat.
One is the Excalibur German Sausage and the other is A.C. Legg Smoked Sausage. The seasonings are totally different from each other. The German sausage is mild with a little garlic and black pepper flavor, maybe a little sweetener. The A.C Legg smoke sausage seasoning is a bigger flavor with red pepper and some sage in it.
After a test patty, both are very good tasting and are worth making more of.
My method on this was to coarse grind the meats, mix seasoning and water, fine grind, and then 3 minutes in the bowl chopper for a semi-emulsified texture.
Both batches were then stuffed in natural hog casing and smoked.

I will add some more pictures after they come out of the smoker.

Edit: Very pleased with the finished product. As mentioned, both are very different flavor profiles but each good in its own way.
I am also convinced this is the meat block I will stick with for venison based sausage.

Some friends and I made 25 lbs of snack sticks this morning. 80 lean venison/ 20 pork fat and Willy’s snack stick seasoning.
This is the first year we used pork fat after over a decade of using beef fat exclusively with our venison. They were very good , but lost that bit of beefy goodness.
We stuffed the majority in sheep casings but came up a few feet short so did a few feet in collagen casings.
After stuffing, we divide them up and everyone takes some home for smoking.

Recently came into a used faucet set with a nice sprayer attachment.
Look out, dirty equipment!

Bún Thịt Nướng tonight. As is usually the case, my dear wife did all the hard work and I helped with the grilling.
Slices of marinated pork loin, and sliced Nem Chua cured sour pork sausage, cooked hot and fast on the grill served over a bed of rice noodles, bean sprouts, fresh mint, green onion sauteed in bacon fat, chopped lettuce, nuoc cham , and peanuts.