"Curing" without pink salt

SaturdayFatterday

I wanted to try salt-curing and smoking a fresh ham on the BGE.  I basically prepared a strong brine, added brown sugar and aromatics, and brined the ham for four days.  I rinsed and dried the ham, then hot-smoked it at about 200-225*F for three hours.  I then glazed the hell out of it, and kept smoking it until the internal hit 155*F.  I chilled it, sliced it, and served it.

It was tasty!  The only problem was that the pieces of meat closer to the bone were far more like pork than ham, meaning (I think) that my salt "cure" had not penetrated as deeply as I would have hoped.  I want to give it another try.

I figure my options are:

(1)  Brine for longer, maybe 6-8 days or more;

(2)  Inject the brine as well as submerging the ham;

(3)  Chill the ham overnight after brining, but before smoking, to allow the smoke to penetrate further;

(4)  Break down and cure it with pink salt (I'd really prefer not to do this).

I know that some of you will say "just do (4), nothing wrong with pink salt," and you'll likely have very compelling reasons for that.  What I'm mostly interested in is if some combination of (1), (2), and/or (3) would get me the result I want.  If not, I'll assume (4) is the way to go, by default.

Thanks in advance.

HDumptyEsq

The only way I know to get that ham flavor all the way (the ham color too) is to use pink salt. It's also a great bet against food-borne bacteria. How big the ham was will dictate the length of brine, but 6 days + will do no harm and a day for pellicle formation, dry in the fridge but rinse it well first.

Little Steven

HDumptyEsq said:

The only way I know to get that ham flavor all the way (the ham color too) is to use pink salt. It's also a great bet against food-borne bacteria. How big the ham was will dictate the length of brine, but 6 days + will do no harm and a day for pellicle formation, dry in the fridge but rinse it well first.

Are you saying the dye from the pink salt colours the meat?