Holly and Smoked beer can chicken rub spend most of our winter days hunting ducks and geese, and we eat them several times a week over the winter months. 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. 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. I’ve even done this on fat wild ducks such as pintail and gadwall that had been gorging themselves on rice.
Don’t smoke sea ducks, divers or shovelers you think might be fishy. Skin these birds and do something else with them. 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. To brine or not to brine? 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. 4 cup kosher salt with 4 cups water and submerge your duck in the fridge overnight. 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 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. 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. 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. This renders fat pretty well and gets you closer to a crispy skin. F or so — 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. You’ll find everything you need to know to master waterfowl in Hank Shaw’s cookbook Duck, Duck, Goose. 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.