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

**URL:** https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/hardest-duck-leg-ever-what-should-i-never-do-again/686
**Category:** Anova Precision® Cooker
**Tags:** fowl
**Created:** [January 2, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/hardest-duck-leg-ever-what-should-i-never-do-again/686 "2016-01-02T12:43:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Pippi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@Pippi](https://community.anovaculinary.com/u/Pippi)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/hardest-duck-leg-ever-what-should-i-never-do-again/686/1 "2016-01-02T12:43:25Z")

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:(( 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…&nbsp;

  

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…

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### Author: ![Mia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Mia](https://community.anovaculinary.com/u/Mia)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://community.anovaculinary.com/t/hardest-duck-leg-ever-what-should-i-never-do-again/686/2 "2016-01-19T16:24:24Z")

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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 :-)&nbsp;