Making the most of carcass?

We're butchering our Pekin ducks in a couple weeks and it's got me thinking about how to maximize what we get out of them. Last time we did ducks, we left them whole but I want to part about half this time. I've been reading about making stock (possibly duck glace), rendering fat and making duck confit - I'd like to try all three.

This recipe for duck glace uses the carcass and feet. But I've also read that a lot of the fat for rendering comes from the tail and back of the carcass. Maybe this is a silly, newbie question but - can we use the carcass to make BOTH stock and rendered fat?

If you use your ducks to make extra, like fat and stock, what's your process like? What parts do you use and how?

We also have 4 Toulouse geese to do at some point (probably not the same day) - can we use the geese the same way we use the ducks?

We've done chickens several times and have made chicken stock from feet, necks, hearts and gizzards. So this isn't a completely new concept for us. Just a new bird!

Thanks!

If you want stock and fat, I'd pressure cook the carcases for 30-60 minutes, chill, then skim off the fat.  You'll probably need to heat the fat again to drive off the remaining moisture and skim any particulates off.  But it should be fine.  If you don't have a pressure cooker you can use a slow cooker, or a pot on the stove, but it'll take several times longer.

I agree with Gray and do it all the time. If possible, I pour the broth off the bones and put it in a tall, narrow jar (or two), as that will give you a wider chunk of fat to work with. Duck fat will be softer than fats like beef or lamb, but I use it in baking all the time.

The feet add a *lot* of gelatin to the broth. I make sure my duck feet get blanched so I can pull of the outer layer of scales and claw coverings just for hygiene reasons, but I don't know how necessary that is. It really ticks me that modern chicken processing plants just waste the feet because at least here, the inspectors won't let them use them. I can see more risk with industrial birds, but home-raised are much safer biologically speaking from what I've read.

We do have a pressure cooker! But I've never cooked anything in it, just used it for canning tomato sauce, potatoes, venison, etc. Can anyone walk me through the process of using it for this purpose? Thanks!

Lindsay Dunn wrote:We do have a pressure cooker! But I've never cooked anything in it, just used it for canning tomato sauce, potatoes, venison, etc. Can anyone walk me through the process of using it for this purpose? Thanks!

I just chop up the bones just enough that they will pack tightly. Using your best Tetris skills, fill up the cooker with bones up to the max fill line, then top off with water up to the same level.  I bring the cooker up to temp on high, then turn down to the lowest temp that will keep it chugging along.  You want to cook it long enough that the meat falls off the bone, but not so long that the bones dissolve (much).  I'd start with 30 min and go from there.  

Gray Henon wrote:

Lindsay Dunn wrote:We do have a pressure cooker! But I've never cooked anything in it, just used it for canning tomato sauce, potatoes, venison, etc. Can anyone walk me through the process of using it for this purpose? Thanks!

I just chop up the bones just enough that they will pack tightly. Using your best Tetris skills, fill up the cooker with bones up to the max fill line, then top off with water up to the same level.  I bring the cooker up to temp on high, then turn down to the lowest temp that will keep it chugging along.  You want to cook it long enough that the meat falls off the bone, but not so long that the bones dissolve (much).  I'd start with 30 min and go from there.  

If you've got a stainless rack you can put at the bottom to keep the bones and meat up 1/4 inch, that's a bonus. Also, the broth will be much more nutritious if you add some things like carrot tops, onion +/- skins, celery leaves, dandelion leaves etc. and a dash of vinegar.

It sounds as if you're talking one of those really big pressure canners, so I agree 30 minutes is a good time to try. The more food in, the longer the cook time (like quarts take longer than pints when canning). My pressure canner specifically says you need to let the steam vent for 7 min before adding the pressure regulator, but it is an old one. You don't necessarily want it on high for that whole 7 min or it may burn on the bottom (that's where the rack really helps), but just high enough that the steam keeps coming out aggressively.

If you think of specific questions, ask away! Bone broth is awesome for so many things.

What do you do with the bills and does anyone eat the tongues?  

Is wax the best way to get the down off and can you remelt the wax to save the down and reuse the wax?  Can you tell that my drakes just popped and I've got some butchering to do?

Timothy Markus wrote:What do you do with the bills and does anyone eat the tongues?  

Is wax the best way to get the down off and can you remelt the wax to save the down and reuse the wax?  Can you tell that my drakes just popped and I've got some butchering to do?

Wax works very well but it gets everywhere, yes you can remelt it and sieve the down out, I don't think you could get all the wax out of the down though. and don't expect to use that sieve for anything else again though! Bills and heads went to my dogs so no idea what one would do with them.

Timothy Markus wrote:What do you do with the bills and does anyone eat the tongues?  

Is wax the best way to get the down off and can you remelt the wax to save the down and reuse the wax?  Can you tell that my drakes just popped and I've got some butchering to do?

I admit I just compost the heads. I figure any gift to the compost gods is a gift to the land and plants that will cycle to feed more ducks. If they haven't degraded enough (bones from young, small animals degrade much faster and more completely than bigger or older animals) when I go to use the compost I either toss them into a current one, or toss them in the wood stove and cycle them as ash.
That might be different if I had decent equipment to do the plucking. I've read about the wax method and the Aussie Extention guys really recommend it if you're selling the ducks (their bulletins seem very good and they don't ram "industrial farming is the only way" attitude at me.) Yes, I've heard you can filter and reuse the wax. For home use, I don't worry about the odd feathers that don't come out!

IF you roast the carcass before making stock it will not only make the stock taste better, much of the fat will render out in the process.  Collect that fat from the tray you roasted with.

As mentioned, feet at a lot of gelatin to your stock.  Not sure if duck feet peel like chicken feet, but if they do, I'd recommend doing that first so you don't get any nastiness from the feet in the stock.  Otherwise scrub the feet really well.

For the down, if it's just little fine hairs that are left use a torch to burn them off.  Just be really fast as you want to just singe the fine hairs, and not the skin itself.

You can add the heads to the stock if you want.  With chicken and turkeys I give the heads to the dog since the brains and eyes are very nutritious for him.  

Jay Angler wrote:It really ticks me that modern chicken processing plants just waste the feet because at least here, the inspectors won't let them use them.

The USA, where chicken feet are barely marketed due to lack of demand, used to sell 400,000 metric tons of chicken feet a year to China.  But that stopped due to tradewar politics (before the current trade war, just the low-level stuff that's always happening in agricultural products).  Why China and America Fight Over Chicken Feet

A few years back, when the exports were still happening, I saw an article claiming that chicken meat in the USA was so terribly cheap in no small part because we were overproducing chicken, incentivized to an extent by the booming Asian market for the feet.  I have no idea how true that may have been, and I can't find the article now.