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Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Smoked meats speak winter to me, and so does wild duck. Holly and I spend most of our hunting days in December and January hunting ducks and geese, and we eat them several times a week over the winter months. In that time I do a lot of preserving: Mostly confit, salami, cured goose “prosciutto.” But I will also smoke ducks and geese and freeze them for later.
Those who know their way around a smoker know that fat is a critical element in the process. Fat absorbs the smoke’s flavor better than the meat itself. This is why you see lots of recipes for smoked pork and salmon; both are fatty animals. So are waterfowl. Domestic ducks and geese are essentially avian pigs, and even wild ducks will have enough fat on them to make it worth some smoke time.
I smoked a flock of ducks and geese to get to this post, so here are my thoughts on what to do, and what to avoid.
For starters, if you are using domestic ducks and geese you will want to remove as much of the fat inside the body cavity and around the neck as you can. Save it, though, and render the duck fat for cooking later. You will want to prick the skin of a domestic duck or goose all over with a needle — be careful not to pierce the meat, though. This helps rendered fat escape. I’ve even done this on fat wild ducks such as pintails and gadwalls that had been gorging themselves on rice.
If you have wild waterfowl, follow these guidelines:
- Don’t smoke sea ducks, divers or shovellers you think might be fishy. Smoking will not help you. Skin these birds and do something else with them.
- Avoid smoking snow geese or any other wild bird that is uber-lean; you need some fat to make this work. Even a little is OK.
- Only smoke plucked birds. Remember, the smoky flavor lingers in skin and fat far more than meat. If you smoke a skinned duck it will be more like jerky and less like a proper smoked duck.
- Smoking whole birds give you better results than pieces. Smoking a whole goose or duck will keep the meat more tender and juicy.
- Big ducks smoke better than small ducks, although there is no reason you can’t smoke a teal.
Your first question is to brine or not to brine? I’ve done both. If you want to eat the smoked duck for a Sunday dinner or whatnot, you can skip the brining — unless your duck is pretty lean, in which case the brine can help the meat stay moist. But brining a duck, especially if you use pink salt, will help preserve the bird longer in the fridge and will let you smoke it longer without drying out the meat.
So, if you choose to brine, do this:
- Mix 1/4 cup kosher salt with 4 cups water and submerge your duck in the fridge overnight.
- If you want to cold-smoke (below 90 degrees) or smoke for a very long time or if you want that pretty pink color, add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of pink salt, sodium nitrite, a/k/a Instacure No. 1.
- When your duck is nicely brined, take it out of the water and pat it dry. Set it in a cool, drafty place for a few hours to dry out a bit. If you want to go the extra mile, put a fan on the ducks. After it is dry, then you can smoke it. if you skip this step and put a wet duck in the smoker, the smoke will not adhere as well to the skin or meat of the bird.
If you are skipping the brine, simply pat the duck or goose dry, let it dry out for a few hours and salt it well before smoking.
As for flavors, I am in love with the combination of smoke, duck, salt and maple. And not just any maple: I prefer the thick, super-premium maple syrup from Blis, which you can buy online from Earthy Delights. If you don’t want to bother with fancy syrup, boil down regular maple syrup by half; it’s close, but not the same. I need no other flavors in my life, but honey would be good, as would a Cajun rub, something vaguely Indian, chiles, French quatre epices, etc. Use your imagination.
Photo by Hank Shaw
Wood is another choice you will need to make. I am a big fan of fruit or nut woods, like apple, pecan or walnut. Oak is OK, mesquite too weird.
How you place your duck in the smoker doesn’t really matter. I’ve stood them on end like a beer can chicken, with a glass jar jammed up its butt, and it worked well. But I’ve also just set the duck down on the rack, breast side up, and it went fine, too. You will always need a drip pan under the birds, as they will drip fat.
Your final issues are temperature and time.
If you plan on serving the smoked duck for dinner, go with a hotter temperature, between 250-275 degrees. This renders out fat pretty well and gets you closer to a crispy skin. As for time, I prefer 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours at this temperature. To crisp the skin, get your grill or oven ripping hot — 500 to 600 degrees — and put the ducks in with a drip pan underneath for a few minutes, until the skin crisps. Check after 5 minutes, and in no circumstances let the ducks or geese sit in this temperature more than 15 minutes.
If you want to have a traditional smoked duck, served cold as a luncheon meat or as an appetizer, keep the temperature closer to 200 degrees, and not hotter than 225 degrees. This will still render some fat, but will not crisp the skin — duck skin will lose its crispiness anyway once you put the cooled duck in the fridge. As for time, at least 3 hours and up to 7 hours. If you go to the long end of this scale, you will need the pink salt.
Allow the duck to cool before carving. Slice thin and on the bias, smoked duck is fantastic as part of an appetizer plate or in a sandwich. You can also carve a whole breast, sear off the skin side in a frying pan until it crisps again, and serve it with lentils or polenta. Again, use your imagination.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
smoked duck or goose
While there are lots of ways to smoke a duck or goose, this is what I prefer. This recipe is designed for wild ducks or geese, but it does work with domestic birds as well. Once your birds have been smoked, they will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
Serves 2-4.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hours
- 1 large duck or small wild goose
- Salt
- 1/4 cup thick maple syrup
- Salt the duck well inside the cavity, then paint the outside of the bird with the maple syrup. Salt the outside well.
- Set the bird in your smoker with a drip pan underneath. Smoke between 200 and 225 degrees over apple wood for 4 hours. Baste the ducks with the maple syrup every hour. When smoked, allow to cool completely, then carve. Serve cool or at room temperature as a cold cut or appetizer, or carve the breast whole and sear in a pan. Slice and serve with lentils.
Just a couple of suggestions: I would lean strongly towards only a half teaspoon of the Pink salt. A little goes a long way, but then I start with a gallon of water. I would also brine it a lot longer if it was a bigger duck.
Good Lord, I am salivating at my desk! Smoked duck is close to heaven!
Here in the Midwest, we get a small ‘diver’ that still goes to puddles called a ring-bill. They are obviously coming from north of us; they are well fed, easier to pluck, snowy white skin with no pin feathers, and a consistent layer of fat that makes them a favorite.
But I will also pluck a teal and be perfectly content. There are not many ducks better than these little morsels!
My husband and I disagree on the amount of wood you use to smoke with. How much do you use?
This sounds wonderful. Could you smoke a turkey? We have a turkey awaiting harvesting and I’ve wanted to smoke it. The last one was 40 pounds and this will push 30. I was thinking the longer smoke would be a nice way to savor this bird.
I smoke ducks unbrined, salted the day before, left to dry in the fridge overnight, seasoned simply with salt and peppers and some aromatics on the inside. I let them cook until completly tender throughout at about 215-225 for around 5-6 hours. I dont mind eating the overcoked breast because they stay moist. My question is how do the legs come out with your preparation? The breast looks great in your pic though. Cheers
Which smoker do you use? I have never bought one, but a vendor at the farmer’s market sells a whole duck and I’d like to try your recipe.
Steve: I generally use a half teaspoon of pink salt and it works fine in a brine. And I shot a ringneck just this morning! Only here in California they are never so fat and lovely as they are in the Midwest.
Rachel B and Diana: I use a Bradley Smoker, so I use wood pellets for it. When I used to smoke with logs, I’d start a fire with charcoal, then add a few branches of apple or nectarine or almond wood at a time. You want smoke, but not a raging inferno of heat.
Steve: Absolutely. Smoked turkey is awesome, but be sure to brine it first – less fat.
Bob: The legs come out nicely done! Still a little red, but tender. It’s the long smoke time that does that, I think.
Just finished smoking a mallard and a wood duck with this recipe. I used both cherry wood and pecan hulls for the smoke. Modified the glaze and used about 1/4 maple syrup and the other 3/4 boiled cider. Fantastic! Looking forward to cooking the carcasses down into stock. Thanks for the inspiration.
Great tips, dude. I now know why my skin didn’t get all crispy last couple of times I’ve tried smoking.
A few nights back, I smoked up a mallard, a cannie and a speck the other day for me and a buddy for dinner. The cannies were heavenly, though the other two were good. The best part, however, was the leftovers. I chopped the meat up cold and mixed it in with red-leaf lettuce, a homemade balsamic vinaigrette and some salty green olives.
Pure bliss.
Hank,
When you are smoking for the slower low temperature version, what internal temperature are you trying to achieve? 3-7 hours is a pretty big window.
Bob: I am not really worrying about internal temperature with this method, because even at 200 degrees a 3-hour smoke will cook the bird to at least 150 degrees internal – pink but cooked. The longer smoke times are more for piling on smoke flavor than for cooking.
Thanks. I am just always worried about overcooking and getting the livery taste. I will be smoking a Pintail, Gadwall, and Spoonie today that we got at Sacramento NWR on Wed. for a New Year’s Day party tomorrow.
Hank. Why is it so important to remove the fat? Isn’t fat what holds the smoke flavor?
Dan: I am talking about excess fat, from morbidly obese domestic ducks or fat pintails and such. You’re right – you want a nice layer of fat on the bird, but all that body cavity fat and the fat on the neck is too much.
And on domestics, you want some of the body fat to render out because they are just so damn obese….
I love smoked duck … my absolute favourite way to do them though is to brine the breasts exactly how I’d brine pork for ham and hot smoke them with a simple rub of salt and pepper with a drizzle of maple syrup.
That’s killer. Just another thing that makes me wish I lived outside NYC. I’d follow your blog and hunt and smoke stuff. happy new year’s.
Not only is this smoked duck fantastic (thanks again for the tips on this technique with my wood ducks), the carcasses make amazing stock.
Mark: Yes they do! One smoked duck carcass has become a required ingredient in my wild duck stock these days…
Sweet! We served duck for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner party and I ended up braising them in mulled cider, then roasting a bit for crispy skin. It worked, but I really want to try them smoked next.
Hank,
We smoked a bunch of goose yesterday. How long will it keep in the fridge?
If I freeze it, when we’re ready to eat do I just thaw and serve (I like it chilled or even room temperature).
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What’s pink salt?
Clifton: It is salt mixed with sodium nitrite, which helps prevent botulism in sausages that are cooked very slowly. It also gives the meat a pretty pink color. In general, the cooler you smoke the meat, the more you need the pink salt. I buy it under the brand name Instacure No. 1
.
Hank,
Love the website. I am a Navy pilot who was stationed overseas in Japan, and I used to salivate reading your blog while underway. I have used many of your techniques and recipes to serve to friends, including a huge Christmas meal in 2010 for most of our squadron, many of whom had to go out to sea the next day. That meal was a highlight for many of us during a time when 24 hour-notice deployments were a regular occurrence.
Duck is popular in Japan (think of all the starred French restaurants in Tokyo…) but less common than in China, so whenever I cooked one of your recipes for our Japanese friends, they could not get enough.
Our neighborhood park in Yamato, JP had a fantastic pond that attracted great waterfowl during the winter, usually making the trek from Hokkaido, Korea, or Siberian Russia; lesser scaup, Eurasian widgeon, pintail, redheads, etc. My wife and I used to love spending Sundays reading books by the pond and throwing old bread to the ducks.
Now that we are back in the states and have access to a smoker, and easier access to ducks to cook with, its funny that you posted something about smoked ducks. You already posted a great recipe for pheasant carnitas. As a native Iowan, I naturally gravitate towards anything pheasant. I feel you may want to try this idea, as it has worked for me time and time again:
Smoke your whole duck according the the recipe above, with the added thought that a touch of cherry or persimmon wood to any bbq is a good idea. Serve the breasts as described. Then, take the smoked wings and legs and do a decent carnitas slow cook in duck fat. Serve on heated tortillas with onion and cilantro.
Oh, and beer. I am an Iowan, and a Navy pilot. Beer must be included.
i would like to smoke some barbury duck brests i was looking at your method and trought i would ask for you opnion salt the breasts then cold smoke for 12 hours would this be a safe way to do this
Neville: I don’t have a lot of experience with true cold smoking, but if it were me I would use Instacure No. 1 in the salting process as a safeguard against bacteria.
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What great recipes you do. With pheasant season coming fast Iam looking for a smoked phesant recipe. Do you think this would work for pheasant? I plan to try your pheasant sausage this year as well.
Great article. I agree, mesquite is weird. I tend to like Red Oak from the California Coastal Mountains (think Santa Maria Tritip), but I’m going to try some of the other woods you talked about. Another wood I love is Olive.
I always place my birds breast down. That way the fat off the back moves to the breast making it juicier. I’ve done taste test and everyone unanimously preferred breast down(wild and domestic). I never have time to cut the birds, because after I put them out, they are gone in minutes.
Marty
Good site…Am bringing the 10 geese . I breased them & took the legs as well….Hope this works…Thanks for the tips.>>>>COLIN
Hi,
I live in South Africa, we hunt on a regular bases and will try your recipes, it looks greate!
Hank,
Almost exactly my process. I do brine longer as I do larger batches and freeze some after smoking, but I also do a 24-48 hour (depending on the size of the birds) soak in dr. Pepper or coke. The phosphoric acid does a nice little tenderizing. Err on shorter rather than longer as the consistency gets a little like liver if you over do it. Great recipe.
Peter
Hi Hank, I’ve been working on a smoke house out back for a few days now and this will be very helpful. We were given a couple of Muscovy ducklings around Christmas, and told not to kill them or the kids would be upset. Of course they turned out to be drakes, and have become quite aggressive (and randy!). Mother managed to top it off by asking why we hadn’t put them in the pot at 12 weeks! So, I decided on smoking them, which has led me to here, and here I shall stay-Great Blog, keep it up!
Steve Button, Tasmania
I’m a first time smoker, looking to smoke some duck. Your recipe sounds divine! This may be a silly question, but my smoker tray has an area for the wood chips/etc. and an area for brine or other liquid additives. Any recommendations for the liquid portion? Or should I just use the leftover brine?
Richard: I use cool water.