Hardest duck leg ever - what should I NEVER do again?

Anova Precision® Cooker
1

:(( Very sad… Was really looking forward to the duck confit that it was suppose to be but as the titel says… all I got was the hardest duck leg ever…


I salt cured the legs in a ziplock bag in the fridge during 24 hours, rinsed, patted dry and then put into it’s water bath at 65C/149F for another 24 hours. I decided on these numbers after reading wildly differing temps & times on 'tinternet and since I usually prefer the lower end of most cooking temperature suggestions… 

Sooooo… anybody? I’d really like to understand the science behind my failure. I have to say that the legs came out of the cure very rigid already. Is that normal? If someone knows what happened here I would really appreciate their help in understanding it… Not in the least to avoid another disappointing result after a 48 hour wait…


2

Hi, Tried duck confit both the traditional way and with the Anova last week.

There are only two ways that I can think of that you duck came out that hard from the cure. Too much salt or it was exposed to too much air. We use about 1/2 a tablespoon of kosher salt per leg (I find if we use regular table salt it is too salty - smaller grains more salt so reduce the amount), or a bit more if they seem big. We then seal them in a tupperware container or a plastic sealable bag. I also usually only cure for 12 hours (I know! but they never never really last long enough after the first week so we are not really concerned with the preserving :-)