Goose pluckin’?

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mporter012

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Oct 30, 2019
Messages
237
places where waterfowling is popular. Arkansas, Sac Valley, etc.
Drop birds off, come back, birds are plucked.
pay guys who plucked.
I used to pay my daughter $5 a bird to pick. She grew up. Damn it!
That’s incredible!
 

3pointer

Lil-Rokslider
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Apr 7, 2019
Messages
250
I’ll breast most geese pound and bread them with Italian bread crumbs, but I will pick a young speckle belly though
 

Oregon

WKR
Joined
May 15, 2018
Messages
784
Location
Oregon coast
Do you guys dip your ducks/geese in hot water before plucking?

Do you know/understand how the hot wax works? If you don’t, google. It works great.
basically, melt a bunch of perafin wax in boiling water. Submerge goose in pot, keep dipping underwater. Hang bird and let cool/dry. Then peel like an orange. Works pretty good.
Saves on early onset of carpal tunnel.
 
Joined
Sep 17, 2019
Messages
7
Add a squirt or two of dish soap instead of wax to a pot of water and bring to a boil. Dip goose or duck 10-15 seconds. Pull out and rub feathers neck to tail. They should peel off easily. If not, dip them a little longer. Finish off the few remaining pin feathers and down with a propane torch. Wash with clean water and you're done. And the pot washes up easy as you don't have to worry about cleaning up all the wax
 
Joined
Jul 5, 2018
Messages
95
Location
Atlanta, GA
Do you know/understand how the hot wax works? If you don’t, google. It works great.
basically, melt a bunch of perafin wax in boiling water. Submerge goose in pot, keep dipping underwater. Hang bird and let cool/dry. Then peel like an orange. Works pretty good.
Saves on early onset of carpal tunnel.
I use and preach this method. Try and pull the skin "down" from the cold wax rather than the wax up from the skin. Works wonderfully and you can reuse wax.
 

Poser

WKR
Joined
Dec 27, 2013
Messages
5,033
Location
Durango CO
Pluck the feathers, leaving only down.
Dip in hot waxy water then Dip in cold water to set the wax. Remove the wax.

You’ll get an incredible amount of fat from a goose this way. Follow Hank Shaw’s recipe exactly for roasted goose and have some jars on hand to store the fat from the pan. Sweet potatoes roasted in goose fat will change your life.
 
Joined
Jul 5, 2018
Messages
95
Location
Atlanta, GA
Pluck the feathers, leaving only down.
Dip in hot waxy water then Dip in cold water to set the wax. Remove the wax.

You’ll get an incredible amount of fat from a goose this way. Follow Hank Shaw’s recipe exactly for roasted goose and have some jars on hand to store the fat from the pan. Sweet potatoes roasted in goose fat will change your life.
i concur. stand at the alter of duck fat
 
Joined
Sep 29, 2019
Messages
33
places where waterfowling is popular. Arkansas, Sac Valley, etc.
Drop birds off, come back, birds are plucked.
pay guys who plucked.
I used to pay my daughter $5 a bird to pick. She grew up. Damn it!

My 12 and 10 year old are great duck pluckers for me! They race each other while I handle the knife work! It’s fun and a win-win for everyone!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Holocene

WKR
Joined
Jul 25, 2016
Messages
374
Location
Portland, OR
I wax dip religiously and preach its benefits as well. Learned from Hank Shaw years ago.

Watch this video:

A few tricks to add to Hank's method:
1. I like to remove a little more down than he does. Saves wax.
2. You want water around 130-140 degrees. This is chicken scalding temperature. Any hotter starts to cook the skin and meat. You don't want that. 10-15 seconds is WAY TOO LONG. I dip quickly, remove, dip again and immediately plunge in cold water.
3. If processing lots of ducks, your water will get warm. Change it out for COLD water. Or add ice.
4. To easily reuse wax, pick up a chinois strainer and when you are done, put all peeled waxy feather chunks in this and let it rest in pot of hot water. Pour boiling water over the bits and wax will melt and pass through sieve into pot of water. Throw away residual feathers. You could make a kick ass outdoors fire starter out of this as well.
5. After birds are peeled, a good rinse will remove tiny wax bits and yield a super market quality duck.
6. PS, you'll have to "draw" (aka gut) the bird after wax dipping of course.
7. I do this SAME DAY as harvest in order to retriever the heart/liver. If left longer, these start to spoil in my climate (Western Oregon). Hanging ducks is too old school IMHO. I "fridge age" by leaving a wax dipped and gutted duck sitting on a baking dish in the fridge. Meat softens and "ages" there without any off tastes from guts decomposing.

If you don't wax dip and just want to dip in hot water, +1 to the liquid Dawn trick. But remember! 140 degrees and only for a few seconds. Boiling is WAY too hot.
 

cmankingsley

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Apr 3, 2018
Messages
171
Location
Kansas
Used to use this method but recently started just dry plucking and burning the pin feathers with a propane torch. I haven't noticed any negative affect on flavor or texture of the skin and it seems to go a lot faster.
 
Joined
Apr 8, 2019
Messages
1,780
Just wet a couple fingers and go plucking nuts...the wax thing works just takes too long...I can have a daily limit of ducks plucked and ready for the torch before the water boils.

I was able to fill my swan tag this year..I think next time it may be worth boiling water and wax...that was a job.
 
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