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Home smoking ham

Clay Q
Clay Q Posts: 4,486
edited November -0001 in EggHead Forum
I took a fresh ham, shank end and made 2 gallons of brine then dumped the ham and brine into my 5 gallon brine bucket. Let it go 5 days with a stir each day. After a rinse this is the brined ham.
BGESmokedHam20100001.jpg

Got the smoker egg going 225 degrees dome with hickory and cherry smoke, indirect setup with a drip pan. Hot smoked 5 hours when the internal hit 157 degrees.
BGESmokedHam20100004.jpg

The meat is not the characteristically pink-red because I did not use curing salt nitrates & nitrites, just spices, Kosher salt, brown sugar, onion and garlic in water. My plan is now to rest the ham in the frig until New Years Eve when I will cook it just like a regular ham in the egg with brown sugar and allspice and honey bourbon. I hope I did ok, I guess I'll find out on New Years Eve. I know this will not be like a city ham from the market but something 'tween a ham roast and a processed smoked ham. I just hope it will be tender, juicy and flavorful- that's my goal. Not a lot of fat on this. Any tips is appreciated. I have no recipe, just winging it.
Thanks.
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Comments

  • Hoss
    Hoss Posts: 14,600
    The BEST sailors make their own waves! B) I,for one will be watching for you to post the results.I cooked a FRESH ham once in a brown paper bag in the oven,225 for 24 hours.It was one of the BEST I ever tasted. :) Good Luck friend.
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  • Mr Holloway
    Mr Holloway Posts: 2,034
    Thanks for the post
    Would like to know how it turns out for you :)

    Shane
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    someone posted a ham cure recipe the other day that was absent the nitrites, and in it the recipe said "at the end you'll have a real cured ham!"

    sorta.

    prosciutto is salt-cured, and so is a 'country' ham. cured a lot longer, and not in a brine, but what the heck, right? who cares/ you have a ham, and brined it, and it'll be fine as is.

    but yeah, it won't have the characteristic texture and piquancy and pink color of a ham cured with nitrites. i think you will have some pink, salt-cured stuff goes pink (eventually), just not like nitrite-cured meat does.

    when doing a whole ham, it's good to inject a lot of the brine along the bone, because otherwise the cure is acting solely from outside in. and in five days it may not have made it all the way thru yours. you might actually find a pink ring of cured pork and a white roast inside it. but again, no big deal.

    you have already cooked this puppy, so when you go to eat it, take it only to 140

    moist? probably. i did a hurry-up ham like this and ended up with a semi-hammy (as in 'cured') roast. two inches of ham enclosing a white pork roast in the interior.

    have fun. that's the idea after all.
    have you done a traditional cured ham before?
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Clay Q
    Clay Q Posts: 4,486
    This is my first brined ham. I'm taking a guess based on what I've done in the past with brines for turkey and chicken. Yup, I thought of injection but threw out my cheap injector a few years ago and never replaced it with a good one so...next time. What is new; Pre-smoking then resting the ham in the frig a couple of days to mellow the smoking then re-cooking on the day of the feast. From experience I've found smoke to mellow and not be as harsh after resting overnight or a few days in the fig. Cheese sets a good example. Smoke and eat the same day and the smoke tastes a little raw. Aged in the fig a couple of days and the smoke flavor mellows.

    If this ham turns out good, and it looks good so far, I would have no problem doing this again with injection.

    Thanks for your advice!
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  • Clay Q
    Clay Q Posts: 4,486
    24 hours!!! :ohmy:
    I've heard of the paper bag trick, for apple pies.
    http://www.elegantfarmer.com/products/pie.html

    Thanks Hoss!
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  • Clay Q
    Clay Q Posts: 4,486
    I will report. The good, the bad, the ugly, I will report whatever the outcome.

    Regardless, champagne will help. :silly:
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    ah. well then your brine sounds like it may have simply been a brine and not an attempt at any sort of cure. so yeah, it's essentially a roast pork with moisture (and some flavor) added as insurance against drying out.

    you need to REHEAT it only. it is fully cooked now. ...saying "re-cooking on the day of the feast" makes me nervous. just get it to 140. reheat

    i true curing brine would be a pickle, higher concentrations of salt and curing salts, and it'd go longer and be injected, too.

    again, though, nothing the matter with a ham cooked as a roast
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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