Smoked Duck

joshpounds90

My fiancée and I received a bunch of frozen duck products from Maple Leaf Farms in Northern Indiana. One of the things we were fortunate enough to score was a whole duck, so I finally decided to pull it out of the freezer and thawed it in the fridge for a couple of days. I loosely followed Malcom Reed's YouTube video on "How To Smoke a Whole Duck." I overnight (15+ hours) dry-brined the bird in kosher salt after scoring the flesh with my meat thermometer.

On Saturday morning, I pulled it out of the fridge and wiped it down with paper towels. I stuffed it with orange wedges and two halves of an onion and seasoned it with WING-A-LING's Duck Duck Goose dry rub. I ended up with way more leftover orange wedges than I imagined, but whatever.

While the bird came to room temp., I preheated my BGE and then brought the dome temp. to 325°F with an indirect setup, using a drip pan full of about three cups of water. I stuck my probe in one of the breasts and set my thermometer to 155°F target temp.

While waiting, I made Reed's glaze (orange juice, balsamic, molasses, honey, s&p, orange zest) and put it in the fridge. After about three and a half hours-ish, she was at 155°F internal (breast meat), so I opened the egg and brushed on the glaze. At this point, the bird was looking pretty good and smelled even better.

After adding the glaze, I let her ride for almost another 50 minutes, until the internal temp. of the breast hit 164°F.


Then, I pulled the duck off the egg and let it rest for 15 minutes on a wooden cutting board in my kitchen.

Before carving, I removed the orange wedges and onion halves. It smelled incredible and was very moist! Very much enjoyed the smoky flavor and would highly recommend this to anyone for a holiday meal, as it seemed to me like a more succulent turkey, although with much less meat.

Botch

Gorgeous, and thanks for the detailed write-up; I kinda screwed up my last duck.  

Langner91

I have had a lot of Bourbon today, but did you mention which wood you used for smoke?

That duck looks great!

REB17

Was the skin crispy? To me that's the holy grail.

kl8ton

Almost 4.5 hours at 325? How heavy was this duck?   It looks great.  One of my sons badly wants to try one.  I'm not as enthusiastic.   Good write up! 

StillH2OEgger

Looks great. How big was that duck?

MasterC

Love your cook. I've delt with Maple Leaf Farm for a long time. Great business, I think it might process more duck than anyone.

RyanStl

I have to try this. Looks so good.

joshpounds90

kl8ton said:

Almost 4.5 hours at 325? How heavy was this duck?   It looks great.  One of my sons badly wants to try one.  I'm not as enthusiastic.   Good write up! 

Had to have been almost 5 lbs! lol It was huge. I didn't pay any attention to the time because of its size. Just stuck in the probe and waited it out.

joshpounds90

REB17 said:

Was the skin crispy? To me that's the holy grail.

That's honestly what I wanted to achieve more than anything. I made sure to dry brine in the fridge for more than 12 hours. I think it brined for over 15 actually. Beyond that, I'm not sure how else to make the skin crisp. I wanted to retain as much moisture in the meat as possible, while drying out the skin. Do you have any tips?

fishlessman

joshpounds90 said:

REB17 said:

Was the skin crispy? To me that's the holy grail.

That's honestly what I wanted to achieve more than anything. I made sure to dry brine in the fridge for more than 12 hours. I think it brined for over 15 actually. Beyond that, I'm not sure how else to make the skin crisp. I wanted to retain as much moisture in the meat as possible, while drying out the skin. Do you have any tips?

poke lots of holes under the skin and low and slow it raised direct for crispy skin.  the drippings burning dont seem to be a problem at 220 dome direct

https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/237371/duck-with-wild-rice

Teefus

There are lots of ducks raised in my neck of the woods. Prime rib is cheaper per pound. I ate way too many ducks as a pup to pay the long dollar for waterfowl. Even though none have any birdshot in them. That’s a plus. Just saying...

SonnyBlack

Now that's the way a recipe/cook write-up should be written. Excellent job.

CPARKTX2

Nicely done. We love duck. 

blind99

gawjus!

kl8ton

I'm going to do this. One of my sons wants to eat duck. It looks great! 

Sea2Ski

Made duck on the egg a few times. Always turned out well. Yours looks fantastic. I always save that duck fat that is liquid gold. Toss some in with potatoes or some veggies and it is a game changer. 

kl8ton

My duck is thawing in the fridge.  Doing this for Christmas along with the SRF Brisket.