Another newbie question for making my own smoked deer sausage. Let's say I've got all the way to the point where I've stuffed the casings with the meat ready for smoking....now what?

Tell me if I'm right or wrong but I'm thinking I will smoke at 125-150 for 3-5 hours (until the meat gets to 165). Once that is done do I throw the meat in the freezer until it gets cold, then vacuum seal it, then freeze it?

Is your goal here to make dried sausage or to simply make a sausage that you can thaw and cook later?

quick thaw and cook for later

Well, you do not need the internal temp to get to 165 if you are going to freeze it and then thaw and cook later on. You are only smoking it to give it smoke flavor. All my sausage that I've done like this was stuffed, soaked, hung up to let the casings dry before applying smoke, then smoke for a few hours until they have some smoky color to them, then put them somewhere a little cooler to rest for a little while before vacuum sealing and freezing.

^^^this

165 is a little hot, you'll start rendering fat (cooking) at that temp. When I cold smoke my sausages I pull them out when the internal temp is 153-155, then dunk them in an ice bath to keep from getting any hotter. Some people spray with a water hose, some do neither. Personally, I like the ice bath then I hang my racks of sausage in the house on chairs under a ceiling fan to bloom, (dry & cool). Then package & freeze. The amount of time in the smoke house depends on the level of smoke flavor you want and how your smoke house acts.

When cold smoking sausages I don't take a chance. I don't know what "the rule" is, but in my smoke house my sausages normally take smoke for 6-8 hrs to get them where I want them. That's after the hour or so it takes before to dry the casings. It's too easy to use a cure (Sodium Nitrite) and not have to worry about botulism.

JMHO 150 degrees does not equate to COLD smoking, its cooked at that point.

We stuff our meat hang and smoke wet, our experience is once the casing dries it doesn't take smoke well. The smoking is only for flavor no cooking or even heating of the meat is involved. We smoke overnight in our smokehouse (storage shed with window unit in back yard) cut down what we want to keep for "fresh sausage" in the morning package and freeze it, it still needs to be cooked, can bbq, boil, split and pan fry etc. The rest we leave hang for dried sausage, which is never cooked.

+Just like Redchevy does. And be careful to not over smoke it.

When drying the casings before smoking, they do not get fully dry. I let them get kind of tacky to the touch before applying smoke and in my experience this makes them take smoke better than hanging them up
wet.

Also my cold smoking setup that I used for several years had a firebox buried in the ground a few feet and used some 4" pipe to channel the smoke into the smokehouse. The pipe was fully buried in the ground as well and that really helped the smoke cool before entering the smokehouse.

I don't consider sausage cooked until fat is rendered, you don't render fat at 150 degrees so it's still considered "cold smoking" to many sausage enthusiasts and myself. I bring the sausages up to that temperature because that temp is considered the "safe to eat" temp where bacteria cannot survive. Just like any "smoked sausage" you buy at the grocery store. It's been cold smoked and brought to a temp safe to eat, but the fat has not been rendered and most people prefer to then "cook" it. As far as applying smoke when the casings are wet, I tried it twice and didn't care for it or the smokey wet streaks on my casings. FME sausage takes smoke better when the casings are tacky to dry. That's also what they say in all the sausage making books I've read, anyway. Fresh sausage to me, is fresh sausage. Stuffed, packaged, and frozen. Never sees smoke or cure.

^^Yup

My version is the traditional German way of doing it. Bet Ole Don got a little square head in him

Little of the square head here too My last name is German, also grew up around German's, Check's, & Pollock's...they all had different ways of making sausage, just like you & I. As long as it is good and doesn't make you vomit, you're doing something right.

Half square head and half pollock.