Kettle Duck!

[austin87]

So I had posted if anyone had ever spatchcocked a duck here: http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/grilling-bbqing/anyone-ever-spatchcock-a-duck/

After doing some research the most important thing with duck is rendering out all of the subcutaneous fat so that the skin will crisp, and this is best done lower and slower. I chose to adapt an oven recipe for the kettle and kept the duck whole rather than spatchcocking or leapfrogging it - since those techniques make birds cook faster, I wanted to protect the meat with the skin and fat rather than flatten it out.

I did not use any seasonings other than salt, and I did not add any smoke because the main goal of cook (besides having my parents over for a tasty duck dinner) was to collect all the rendered duck fat. I wanted to keep the fat neutral for use in other cooking applications.

I set up the 22.5" kettle with a 2x2 snake of Coshell (first time using it - I really liked it) and lit 10 briqs in my new compact chimney. I ran about 300 degrees in the dome therm with the vents wide open. I set a drip pan under the duck to collect the fat and juice.



The breast was scored and I used toothpicks to poke holes all over the skin so the fat could leak out.



Each hour I used more toothpicks to poke the skin and flip/rotate the bird. After a few hours I put on whole potatoes, then I halved them, dunked them in the drippings under the duck, and started moving them over the burning snake to brown.



Then they got cut down to a little smaller pieces, dunked again, and more time. At this point I took the lit coals in the snake, dropped them in the bottom of the full sized chimney, and moved the unlit snake on top of them to light. I needed to crank the heat to finish the potatoes and crisp the skin on the duck. It was about a half chimney or so and once they were all going I dropped them into charcoal baskets. Dome therm up around 550 degrees.



Potatoes ready for staging in a hot oven



And the finished duck:



It turned out really good. Overall it took about 4 hours. The thighs and legs were juicy, the skin was crispy, and there wasn't any unrendered fat over the breast. The breast were well done and tasty - I've had duck breasts cooked medium rare before and like them that way, but I'm not sure how you would achieve medium rare breasts with fully cooked thighs and legs and not have it be really fatty.

I also made a glaze/sauce for the duck that was really good. I'd had quite a few adult beverages by then so what's below is less of a recipe and more a general idea of what went into it (which is what lying around the house when I thought "crap, I should probably have some sweet sauce to go with this duck I just cooked for 4 hours!"

equal parts orange juice and apple cider
tart cherry juice
lots of brown sugar
soy sauce
habanero pepper powder - simmered to thicken and flavors meld

There was a fair amount of it left over and it's going on pork tenderloin within the next few days.

The juices and fat from the drip pan went through a wire strainer to remove any solids and into a bowl in the fridge:



Glorious rendered duck fat! The missing spoonful was used to fry up the last few bites of duck and eggs for breakfast this morning and they were awesome. I'm really excited to have this lying around to use in pretty much everything.

Thanks for looking!

[jcnaz]

I have always wanted to try to cook duck, and now I know how I'll go about that. Thanks for the write-up!

[1buckie]

Monster Cookup !!!!


Just exactly perfect !!!!


Thanks for the excellent detail all thru the process also......

[WNC]

Is it weird that kept waiting for the duck fat money shot? Glad you included it, great cook!

[Nate]

Nice cook up.

[BBcue-Z]

Looks great!!
I'm glad it went perfectly
I love French Fries cooked in Duck fat