Tonight's cook was my wife's experiment. I just handled the bbq and otherwise did as instructed. She dry brined it, inside and out, with salt and five-spice. The beer can chook stand has no liquid in it; it's just being used to hold the bird upright.
Then today, she asked me to roast it at 200C in the bbq until cooked. Which I figured was 74C most places and preferably only 70C for the breast. That seemed like it would be tricky, which is why I left it on the stainless steel "can" without any liquid. I was hoping contact with the metal would encourage the darker half the cook a bit quicker than the breast. The temp stabilised at 180C and I was having trouble getting it higher, but the smoke had gone from white to blue so I put it in.
Here's where it gets weird.
45 mins later I pop the lid to rotate it and put a probe in, and it was already cooked. The breast was 71C. A 2kg bird in 45 mins?
It was yum, the breast a tad overdone maybe, but still juicy. The fat hadn't rendered well though - I've since learned I should have used air to separate the skin from the meat, or to poke loads of holes in the skin. The cherry smoke was really prominent in the skin/fat, but not the meat, which does make sense.
We've never done whole duck before, and I'm going to try again in a couple of weeks, but try it my way instead. I'm ordering a hanger thingy from Urbangriller and will try hanging over open coals instead of indirect like today. I think it's time I paid Dwayne another visit for a couple more rubs as well, and see if he can suggest something specific for duck.
