Pluck vs Skinning

[Doormantnt]

Just curious who does what??

What is the benifit of scalding and plucking to leave the skin when I normally skin the meat before cooking anyway??

I can understand roasting, or roterissery to keep the jucies in, but is there any other benifits, ie storage, aging, or anything I am missing??

Just seems alot easier to skin the bird and not worry bout mess and hassles of plucking and scalding.

Please fill me in and straighten me out..

Thanks in advance.

TNT

 

[Judy]

Quote:
None that I can see.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I do both. Which method I use depends on the age of the bird and how many I do at a time. Like you, I usually remove the skin before I cook it, so that part is a wash. If you are making stews or such, the skin can add flavor to the liquids, but it can also add fat.

Young birds I can skin pretty fast. But as they get older, especially with roosters, they can get connective tissue that makes it harder to skin them. My cut-off for whether I'll bother skinning a rooster is around 18 to 20 weeks. After that, the connective tissue really slows down my skinning time. Plucking is the best option for me with older birds.

If I am only doing two or three young birds at a time, getting the water hot is the slowest part of the whole process plus it costs me a bottle of propane. For people with a different set-up, that is not an issue, but it is with me. Once the water is hot, I can keep it hot, but time to get it hot is the real issue. Another benefit of plucking for me is that I use the feet, along with many other body parts, to make broth. If I scald the feet, the skin and toe nails come right off, so I get instant clean feet. If I skin, I have to do a lot of scrubbing and washing before I get those feet clean enough to go in the pot. If I pluck a chicken, the extra skin that comes off the pieces also goes in the broth pot.

Many people that do a lot of processing have an automatic plucker. But that is not what you are talking about.

Some people pluck faster than they can skin. Some people skin faster than they can pluck.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on it. I find it a personal choice depending on your specific situation.

 

[Doormantnt]

Thank yall for the quick insight. I just wanted to make sure I wasnt missing anything.

I'm an avid hunter, and fisherman, and I skin bout all I get. Couldn't imagine why chicken would be much different.

TNT

 

[Doormantnt]

I see the post was moved. I wasn't sure where to post. I appoligize if I offended anyone.

TNT

 

[Mrs. K]

I have found that if I put a folded thick bath towel on top of the lid on the pot, my water comes to a boil much faster. I make sure it is folded so that there is not danger of it coming into contact with the fire. MrsK

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

DH built a spiffy fancy Whizbang plucker and scalder, so it's about a 2 second deal to pluck a bird here. So we pluck 'em.

Order, if we do a reduction in flock day -

Guineas
Chickens
Turkeys
Ducks

The guineas need slightly lower heat usually (we've found at least, YMMV), the chickens are just normal, the turkeys need more room usually, and the ducks need more soap in the water.