I have never brined to make jerky before. The old standard marinade is soy, lea & Perrins, salt, pepper, onion, garlic, and either brown sugar or honey, (liquid smoke if dehydrating), maybe some fruit juice. Add a little cure, I am now learning, its a weight vs. cure thingie. Before I added cure it never lasted long enough to rot. LOL I just tried making a sweet maple syrup jerky which was sort of bland without salt. But was good jerky none the less.
Use the wood you like, remembering that its jerky and you don't want to only taste smoke. Personally I like pecan but then again I have huge trees in my back yard. Pecan is a southern favorite. Doing fowl I would think you'll need to stick with a light smoke, the nuts and fruit woods basically. Hickory, oak, mesquite I wouldn't use unless extremely familiar with their smoking qualities.
Here is the thread on what I just did.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/151108/sweet-maple-jerky
You can make your own marinade, or there are 100's upon the market.
Of course these are only my opinions and we all know what opinions are like, besides I don't think I have ever made jerky out of ducks, maybe something like pheasants but not ducks.
Hope it works out for you and remember there is a jerky section in the forums, and unlimited resources if you use the search engine
Its going to be a beautiful day tomorrow to smoke!
