How To Make Homemade Smoked Ham - Recipe
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Great : SO THE RATIO I USED OF 2.5 LBS OF BLUE RIBBON MAPLE BACON CURE TO 2 GALLONS OF WATER IS FINE FOR THIS TIME. I KNOW IT IS NOT EXACT, BUT WILL BE FINE. tHANKS FOR THE HELP. Tim
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Tim Salois Yup, you wont have any problems as you are brining it! Good luck and post pics!
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Thanks: I see for hams they call soaking for3-5 days brining and the bacon recipe calls it pickling. Both mean the same? Thanks for the help
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Tim Salois Yes, brining and pickling are used in the same way even though they do not mean the same thing even though they have slightly different actual definitions.
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Thanks for all the help. I am very pleased with the products. I had a source I used for years that went out of business. Glad I have found you guys wish I had found you a long time ago.
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lizj Yes, if you want it to sit for 48 hours that is okay, just don’t go too far beyond that as this will contain some sodium erythorbate which speeds the conversion from nitrite to nitric oxide and you run the risk of “gassing out” which is where all your cure converts to gas and escapes the water. Good luck and please post pics when you are done to the bragging board, we don’t have enough pics of customers finished hams!
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I bought all the ingredients in the recipe above minus the sure gel. Will this recipe give me the “grocery store” flavor? I mean like buying a commercial ham flavor? The same with bacon I bought the dry rub bacon and bacon booster. All I am looking for is store bought flavors, nothing different than what I am used to. I will be getting a hog to slaughter in the fall and this will be my first attempt doing the entire process by myself. I even bought some liquid smoke just to make sure that smoke flavor is all the way through the meat. Do you know what the 1 quart liquid smoke is from? Hickory? Apple? or just a combination of woods? Just curious. Thanks!
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cu_hunting Both the Dry Rub Bacon and the Country Brown Sugar Cure are both designed to be “mainstream” seasonings, neither of those will be anything off the beaten path. Those are both the right choices for first attempts also, good job on choosing ones that will make it easy on you. Don’t go crazy with things until you’ve done a few and have gotten comfortable with it! Smoke is hickory.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
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How much liquid smoke do you think I should use? I remember brining and injecting a whole turkey and If I remember right about a couple tablespoons to about 2 gallons of water is what I used… Thanks much! I will post pictures of the finished products!
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cu_hunting Oh yeah, it is a tiny amount 3 oz of the Liquid Smoke we sell is enough for a 100 lb of meat, so that would be about right, potent stuff!
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The California ham spice isn’t going to throw off the “normal” flavor of a ham will it? or the bacon booster? I bought everything that you guys recommended in your video’s… Just want the “store bought” taste if you know what I mean… Sorry for all the dumb questions. Thanks again!
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cu_hunting Nope, not dumb questions, at least not in my mind. Now, a store-bought ham or bacon might be better than your first few tries, depending on what you like. Hams can be difficult to get really good at but once you get it a homemade product should be similar/superior. For bacon, once you make one or two yours should be superior to what you can buy in the store.
Add ham spice for sure, without it you won’t get much of a “ham” taste, they are using something similar in the hams you are getting from a store. For the bacon the Bacon Taste Booster is designed to add old world bacon taste when using modern curing techniques like injecting and tumbling, so that won’t throw it off either.
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I’ve made ham twice now, it’s been small wild hog hams. The first was boneless. I injected it per the recipe. It turned out a bit salty, but otherwise excellent. The last one I did was bone-in, and weighed 4 pounds. I didn’t have sure gel and used carrot fiber instead. I injected and cooked as before. However in this finished ham there were obvious pockets of cure that were a bit unappetizing. Again, otherwise the flavor was great. I have two questions, first do you think the carrot fiber sub was an issue? I noticed that the injection mixture was pretty thick going in. Secondly, do you think soaking would be more effective than injection on such a small ham? And as far as cooking schedule on such a small ham, I shortened each temp/time period by about half, is that the right move? Thanks!
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I’ve made ham twice now, it’s been small wild hog hams. The first was boneless. I injected it per the recipe. It turned out a bit salty, but otherwise excellent. The last one I did was bone-in, and weighed 4 pounds. I didn’t have sure gel and used carrot fiber instead. I injected and cooked as before. However in this finished ham there were obvious pockets of cure that were a bit unappetizing. Again, otherwise the flavor was great. I have two questions, first do you think the carrot fiber sub was an issue? I noticed that the injection mixture was pretty thick going in. Secondly, do you think soaking would be more effective than injection on such a small ham? And as far as cooking schedule on such a small ham, I shortened each temp/time period by about half, is that the right move? Thanks!
bcompton53
I forgot to add that in the first ham, due to the aforementioned confusion in the recipe, I injected and also let sit in brine for 4 days. The last ham was just soaked overnight. In both cases I left out the sodium Erythorbate. -
bcompton53 I would imagine that the Carrot Fiber played a part in your cure not equalizing. They do sell an injectable carrot fiber but its only available for special order from Excalibur. Since it gets so thick I imagine your cure was mostly bound up in the carrot fiber and it couldn’t travel everywhere. With a 4 lb you can inject or brine it, the only thing that would concern me would be green bone even with such a small ham, it’s unlikely though so you should be ok.
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bcompton53 I would imagine that the Carrot Fiber played a part in your cure not equalizing. They do sell an injectable carrot fiber but its only available for special order from Excalibur. Since it gets so thick I imagine your cure was mostly bound up in the carrot fiber and it couldn’t travel everywhere. With a 4 lb you can inject or brine it, the only thing that would concern me would be green bone even with such a small ham, it’s unlikely though so you should be ok.
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To reduce saltiness can/should the ham be placed in cold fresh water for a couple hours after the cover brine before smoking? Not sure if it will have the same saltiness reducing effect as say on a dry cured bacon?
HTCMTF I was wondering the same thing, about whether the brine should be rinsed prior to smoking similar to the dry bacon rub. Did you do this? If so what were the results like? Im about to make hams and bacon from 4 pigs we slaughtered.
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