Wild ducks have little to no fat and can be eaten rare. I would brine them and smoke them at 200-225 until the breast is medium. Just use a thermometer probe to tell.
I cooked up your home version of the SL Spares on the weekend and to directly quote my friends "Holy shit mate! These are fucking awesome! You should be a chef" So, thanks VanillaGorilla! Got the smoke just right as well and its so much easier to manage with the chunk wood (i used Apple) vs the chips id tried before
To conclude my attempt at smoking some birds last week, the ducks were freezer burned beyond salvage and my dog wouldn't even touch them. Oh well, I tried and my buddy who shot the birds now knows he needs to give a shit when packaging his birds up. However the turkey was solid again and the pheasant very good too- it had more flavor and was loved by all. I'm hoping to get my hands on more now, and thankfully spring turkey season is in less than three weeks. Spoiler: Pics and details I had to improvise some since my landlord threw away the bricks I used for indirect heat on the grill (thanks, asshole), and ended up finding a couple broken pieces of terra cotta that worked pretty well to isolate the chacoal off to one side. A foil dish with water is hiding somewhere under there too. Because it was in the 40s and breezy, it took a couple hours longer than normal to slowly cook through the larger pieces but they made it fine. After being on the grill for a few minutes: I served some for my girlfriend with a gooey soft brie cheese and crackers, and a tart cherry weiss beer. This is how I convince her all of my hunting trips are a good thing... they result in tasty food like this:
For the Aussies and anyone else who is interested in the anatomy of pork ribs, here's a great reference and I assume a decent resource for Austrailians who like barbecue.
I am thinking about smoking some venison this weekend. Any tips for the uneducated? I've smoked a lot of the standards (ribs, brisket, and butts).
Wrap it in bacon to help it from drying out. Plus, you then end up with smoked bacon. Some people will also tell you to use an injection to help retain moisture inside, but that's entirely up to you. Also, unlike brisket or butts, you don't want to get anywhere near a high temp as venison doesn't have the connective tissue that needs to breakdown like those other cuts. You should be shooting for an internal temp of right around 140F.
I have quite a few hams, so instead of cutting them for steaks or oven roasting, I could try to smoke one.
Tis the season and I have since upgraded my smoker. covered the opening with gasket material, my concern wasn't so much smoke leaking out but rather wanting to control the flow of it over the cooking surface. I also added two thermometers at grill level, one on each end so I can get accurate readings of what the temp is like by the meat instead of up top where I don't care. Breaking it in tomorrow with a little half brisket, 5 lbs, cut the fat cap to about a quarter inch and made a rub with salt, pepper, a little onion powder and paprika. I'll be using beef broth to inject it as needed. Figure about a 10 hour smoke at 170-180, gonna start with lump charcoal out of a chimney starter (I like the taste of meat not lighter fluid). Once I get that going I'll add 50/50 oak and mesquite. Hopefully I get a nice bark on it. I'm expecting it to have the stall (where the evaporation is the same as the rate of added heat so internal temp stays the same) around the 6-7 hr mark and will bump the temp up to around 230-250 until I get it past that. Edit: to clarify, I did the technical break in last weekend. Rubbed the inside of everything with crisco and got it real hot, then tossed a bunch of wood in the smoker side box so it burned all night. Now it's nice and seasoned like you would a skillet. Oh, and just to get you fuckers real jealous, local grocery store is selling packers cut brisket at $1.50/lbs. God I love Texas.
Had our first real chance to bring out one of the big smokers this weekend for a Kentucky Derby party. Did two bone-in pork shoulders, a corned beef packer brisket, a full case of St.Louis cut ribs and a full pork belly which we split and did two different rubs on. The first was just a simple brown sugar/salt cure for a more sweeter taste. The second was a habanero/rum concoction we came up with and it really pulled a lot of the heat from the peppers into the meat. We smoked the shoulders and brisket for about 10 hours or so until the bones pulled right out of the shoulders. The ribs and bacon we did for about 5 hours. Overall everything turned out pretty good. The only thing I would do differently is cut down a bit on the salt level for the corned beef. The interior of the meat wasn't bad, but the bark was almost like a salt lick.
I'm starting an ugly drum smoker project at home. I don't feel like laying out big money on a good smoker and I've read about this DIY way of getting a decent smoker. So far I've gotten the barrel($10). All the hardware(~$50), some expanded metal to make into the firebox($20), a 22 inch grill plate($14) and a smaller grill plate for the base of the charcoal basket($10.) To buy a fully constructed one can cost almost $400. Im trying to see if I can complete it for under $200. So far, I've bent the expanded metal into a circular shape and bolted the ends. That was such a bitch of a job and I nearly severed my fingers on the metal.
From rep. "Dude, Home Depot sells smokers for $100." Very true, but the metal is so thin and of such poor quality that to buy one of their offset smokers wasn't worth it to me. A really nice smoker has really thick steel walls, about 1/4 inch to help maintain proper temperature. My project gives me good surface area to make a lot of food and because its vertical, it maintains temp nicely.
Any smoker you buy for 100 bucks is going to be garbage. Pure garbage. UDS can run 22-26 hours on a full load of coal and hold temps rock solid. I have built 6 of them, you'll be able to keep it under 200 no problem, I think I usually run about 90 bucks these days depending on if I can score a deal on the drums.
I got a really nice drum for $10. I've pretty much spent all the money I will need to at this point, aside from some little odds and ends. How long did the smoker last before you had to replace it?
I had an old drum that I used as a very hot burn barrel (bottom vents with forced air from a leaf blower) that I'd burn garbage and motor oil in 2-3 times a month. It was more of an incinerator than anything. That barrel would get cherry red and almost melt... hot enough that I could burn old motor oil without any soot or smoke. It lasted more than 2 years. I'm thinking some smoke action isn't anywhere near that harsh on it and it'll last years.
I've had the first one I made for 5 years now, the rest I've made for gifts or for other people, they last a long time as long as you keep water out of them.
Yeah the cheap starter smoker my wife bought me when i got interested in smoking stuff is an absolute POS... it did give me the smoking bug though so it wasnt all bad. So thoughts on this then? https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/4eqyi5/introducing_the_redneck_smoker/ I saw it the other day and thought it was genius (i can get my hands on a plain steel unpainted one... so no bonus carcinogens)... but i'm guessing holding temp will be a problem unless its a particularly heavy duty cabinet.
You can get surplus cabinets for abut $5 - Navy & Army cast offs - from a lot of places. But, they're all painted, because otherwise the steel would rust. Maybe you can strip them - I don't know if that's typically baked enamel or what. You might could get one of those water heater thermal blankets for holding heat in?