I want to make my own smoker gas/electric smoker out of a old metal upright freezer. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas of what is the best way to do this. Would an electric heat plate or gas burner be better?? What type of vents if any are needed? What type of wood chip box is best? What type of thermometer/heat probe?? Lots of venison polish need to be smoked. Thought it would be a fun winter time project. Thanks in advance.

Merry Christmas

Having went through making one out of an old fridge with a plastic interior I can say that you've got a much better start with a metal interior. I had to rip out all the plastic and replace with metal flashing via pop rivets, major pain. What I did was turn the fridge over so the freezer part became the fire box and cut holes from there into the big compartment. I made wooden racks to lay cookie racks on. cut a hole in the bottom (now the top) and put in a hooded chimney with a damper. I use a newer electric hot plate.. all told not a bad smoker but it requires a lot of attention as I the wood tends to catch fire after a while.. so pickup a remote bbq thermometer to keep track of temps. I've also found that I cannot keep temps consistently high enough for anything but smoking fish... with meat you have to be care of botulism when temps are in a certain range.

Surf the web, there are a bunch of DIY smokers sites out there.

As a followup, You might just check craiglist and see what is available in a used commerically made smoker.. if I had it to do again I'd do that. Good Luck!

Fishmon thanks for the ideas. The freezer I am using has an all metal inside. So I think thats all I will have to do is put in a heat source/;wood box.