Smoked duck breast – a dream when smoked hot or cold
- Type
- Ham
- Level
- Medium
- Rating
- Rate this recipe
Today I’m going to show you how to make your own smoked duck breast. With a moderate amount of effort, you can achieve a super tasty result.
Smoked duck breast combines a fine smoky aroma with winter spices such as cloves and cinnamon. Whether as a starter, a fine main course or an ingredient in a salad – it adds a festive and special touch to any dish.
You can smoke the duck breast cold or hot. You can find both options in my article.
Here you can find the complete smoked duck breast recipe as a video or to read through.
Have fun and good luck making it!
Table of Contents
Smoked duck breast – What do you need to make it?
Ingredients per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| smoked duck breast | 1,000 g | 100 % |
Spices per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| salt | 27.5 g |
| Cure #1 | 2.5 g |
| sugar mixture (50 % dextrose / 50 % sugar) | 2 g |
| black pepper | 1.75 g |
| clove | 0.75 g |
| ginger powder | 0.5 g |
| cinnamon | 0.5 g |
The equipment to make smoked duck breast
Smoker
You will need the smoker to smoke your duck breast.
Smoking auger / cold smoke generator (for cold smoking option)
With the cold smoking option, you also need a smoking auger. It ensures that you have continuous smoke in the smoker for 12 hours.
Make smoked duck breast – Step-By-Step Instructions
Coarsely grind all the spices in a mortar. You can also use a spice grinder for this.
Pour the spice mixture over the duck breast and distribute the spices evenly on all sides of the duck breast.
Place the duck breast in a bag. Make sure that all the spices end up in the bag.
Vacuum seal the duck breast and place the bag in the refrigerator for the minimum curing time (1.5 days / cm meat thickness). Turn the bag occasionally. You can also cure your piece of meat for longer, but not shorter.
Pat the duck breast dry with a kitchen towel.
Then insert a hook into the cured piece of meat. This will make it easier to hang up afterwards. Alternatively, you can also tie the duck breast with kitchen twine and hang it up.
First the hot-smoked version:
Hang your duck breast in the smoker and dry it for approx. 30 minutes at 50 °C (122 °F) without smoke.
After 30 minutes, increase the temperature to 80 °C (176 °F) and continue smoking the duck breast until it has reached a core temperature of approx. 65 – 70 °C (149.0°F – 158 °F).
Your smoked duck breast is ready.😄 Enjoy it!
As an alternative to hot smoking, you can also cold smoke your duck breast.
The process is the same up to step 6.
After that, the process changes…
Cold smoking duck breast – how it works
Hang the cured duck breast at room temperature (approx. 20 degrees) for 24 – 48 hours so that it can dry.
You can now hang the duck breast in the smoker and smoke it cold for 2 passes*. Ideally, the temperature in the smoker should be between 15 and 20 degrees.
*One cycle means 12 hours of smoke and 12 hours of no smoke.
After the passes, your cold-smoked duck breast is ready 😄. Enjoy it.
Frequently asked questions
Should you hot smoke or cold smoke a duck breast?
Should you hot smoke or cold smoke a duck breast?
Both are on this page and they give you two different things. Hot smoking cooks the breast through, so what comes out of the smoker is ready to eat warm or cold and has the bite of a roast. It is also the shorter road: you cure, you dry, you smoke, and you are finished on the day the curing ends.
Cold smoking leaves the breast raw. It dries first, then takes its smoke cool, and it firms up over the passes into something you slice wafer-thin — closer to a ham than to a roast. That takes days rather than an afternoon, and it needs a smoke source that will not warm the cabinet while it burns.
If this is your first duck breast, take the hot version. It is the more forgiving of the two, it tells you when it is done, and once you have eaten it you will know whether the cold one is what you were actually after.
Do you have to cure a duck breast before smoking it?
Do you have to cure a duck breast before smoking it?
Yes, and the curing is doing more of the work here than the smoke is. The salt and the cure pull water out of the breast and season it all the way through instead of only on the surface, and they are what let a cold-smoked breast hang for days without spoiling. Skip the cure and you have seasoned duck that has met some smoke.
The rule step 4 gives you is a time per centimetre of thickness, which is the only honest way to state it — a thin breast and a thick one are not the same job. Measure the breast at its deepest point and work from there. Longer than the minimum does no harm, because the meat is sealed in a bag with a weighed amount of salt and cannot take up more than went in with it. Shorter leaves the middle uncured, and the middle is the part you cannot see.
How long is the shelf life of the smoked duck breast?
How long is the shelf life of the smoked duck breast?
Your duck breast will keep for about a week in the fridge. The alternative is to vacuum-seal the duck breast in portions. It should keep for 2-3 weeks in the fridge if vacuum-sealed. You can also freeze it. This increases the shelf life many times over.
hello.
is it mandatory to leave the breast in a bag or it will work if I leave it in a airtight container?
I have a Cameron's Indoor Outdoor stove smoker. would that work?
Cris