Smoking a duck

[PeteW]

Hiya,

I ended up picking up a duck from the Farmer's market and plan to smoke it this weekend. Does anyone have any tips?

Is it possible to get a nice smokey duck and still get crispy nice? Perhaps chucking by finishing it off hot and fast?

Also, I was thinking that fruit and berries always go well with duck, in terms of sauces and accompaniments, so was wondering if this is true for the woods to smoke with - I've got a pig pile of blackberry cane trimmings in the garden from when I cut the plants back, could these work for smoking? Might they have a nice flavour? Anyone ever tried smoking on blackberry 'wood'? It's not really wood is it, just skinny little canes...

Cheers

Pete

[keith157]

Basically if you can eat the product you can use the wood for smoking so, theoretically, there should be no problem using the blackberry stalks.

[CyderPig]

Hi Pete
Ditto Keith on the blackberry.
Try cooking the Duck hot and fast in the smoker @ 325F, use plenty of smoke early on .
Set a drip tray underneath the bird to catch the fat, and cook to your required doneness.
It worked for the Goose I did.

Cheers
Si

[stretchie_]

I've done duck breasts a couple of times, can't remember what wood I used, but I just used Chinese 5 spice as a rub, nothing else and it was tastilicious

[FlashGordon]

That sounds amazing!

I must put duck on my to 'eat list'!

[noxskuses]

The only thing to watch out for with cooking a whole duck is the amount of fat that comes off them. It's a lot!

I only use duck breasts now. I made an asian style rub with 5 spice, lemon pepper and dried orange zest and a plum sauce based sauce that was delicious with it. Highly recommended.

Pete

[PeteW]

Just to report my findings...

It was a bit of a mixed result. I followed the Pitt Cue Co recipe for pulled smoked duck which involved brining it, rubbing it and smoking it. The aromatic flavours were great but the brine and the rub meant that it was really, really salty. Think I'd cut down on the salt massively if I did that again.

The Pitt Cue book gives time indications rather internal temperatures to measure when it's done, so I tried looking elsewhere to find a temperature at which duck would 'pull' - couldn't find one though, so went with the value I saw for pulled chicken, around 170F. Sadly though at that temperature it didn't pull, but was still nicely cooked and juicy.

So not a great success, but definitely a learning experience and nobody went hungry!

[stretchie_]

I followed the Pitt Cue Co recipe for pulled smoked duck which involved bringing it

makes sense, if you didn't BRING it you couldn't smoke it

Going purely off duck pancakes I am guessing the duck may have to be quite well cooked to pull it, everywhere I looked for internal temps for duck was showing the recommended temperature and in practice that ends up in a very well done duck, if you want it nice and juicy you have to pull it off at a lower temp.

I'll see if I have the temp written down anywhere, if not I suppose I'll just have to do it again soon We like it sliced and slightly pink mmmmmmmmmm, (why need a drool emoticon?)

[noxskuses]

I also found the Pit Cue Co house rub recipe waaay too salty.

[PeteW]

This was their duck rub rather than the house rub. I've found the house rub to be fine, but then I don't normal combine that with brining. Plus I suppose a duck has more surface area (relatively speaking) so you get more rub to the average bite.