How To Make Homemade Smoked Ham - Recipe

[Jonathon]

Ryan Stephens Add all seasonings at once. Create more of your brine that you need to inject and then use the remainder of the brine that was not injected as the base for your 50% cover brine. TO do this just weigh the amount of solution you have left and then add that weight in water. So if you had 1 gallon of brine left add 1/2 gallon of fresh water. If that is not enough to cover your ham you can add another 1/4 of the weight (in this case that would be 1/4 gallon) to the brine before you would have to add anymore cure.

[HTCMTF]

Ryan Stephens I ended up soaking it over night, (12 hours ish). Came out great. My wife is the one with the salt sensitivity issue. She said it was noticeably less compared to simply rinsing. Could be all in her head, lol. Same recipe both times. Good luck!

[Jonathon]

Also, personally I like this video 100s of times better as I talk more like a human being than a weird robot! https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/801/cured-whole-muscle-meat-105-ham-basics

[Ryan Stephens]

Jonathon
Hams turned out amazing!!! Nice and juicy!

[Jonathon]

Ryan Stephens Sure looks awesome!

[napacorey]

I have a 30lb vacuum tumbler have you ever used one to cure a ham.And if so what would your recommend

[Jonathon]

napacorey Are you looking for vacuum level and time? If so set speed tp 50, pull a 20" vacuum and go for 3 hours. That still requires an injection by the way.

[cu_hunting]

Some of the directions and ingredient lists are kind of confusing at times because you use different units of measure. Like for instance for a 10% pump, or use 2lb of brown sugar cure for a 24 lb ham… I think it would be better to list it out per pound, so like 1.33 oz of brown sugar cure per pound of ham or something along those lines. Or is it per gallon of water… I think I am confusing myself. So it’s the strength or solution that is consistent and won’t vary, but the weight or how much you pump in is the variable and will be a percentage of the green weight of the ham… I think I am answering my own question here… lol Okay but then why does the Excalibur listing say to use 2lb per gallon of water, and your recipe is 2lb per 2 gallons of water… Uuhg I am going to be doing this on Saturday and I need to get this right, it has to be perfect. 2 hams and 2 pork bellies for bacon.

[Jonathon]

cu_hunting I agree it can be confusing, maybe I need to split the post into 2 different ways to do it, one that would be using the full gallon of water and 1 that would be for a small single ham?

Basically, Add 2 lb of cure to 1 gallon of water and inject your ham until it weighs 20% more than it did before you began pumping it. Then weigh the remaining solution that wasn’t injected and add that weight in fresh water. This will give you the 50% strength covering solution that the ham will sit in to allow the cure to equalize within in the meat.

[cu_hunting]

Jonathon is the recipe wrong then? 2lb cure per 2 gallons water? for the country brown sugar cure… or is it 2lb cure for 1 gallon of water? to inject it… then half strength for cover brine for 24 hours…

[Jonathon]

cu_hunting follow this process https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/801/cured-whole-muscle-meat-105-ham-basics while I fix this one. I’m thinking that something changed because not only the post but also the video says 2 gallons for a 20% pump but now the instructions on the bag/box of country brown says 2 lb to 1 gallon for a 10% pump.

There will be an update on this later today

[cu_hunting]

Jonathon Hi Jon, It’s crunch time… I have been doing everything I can to find out the best information on how to make hams, bacon etc… for months I have been preparing and to find out now that the information I have now is wrong is really freaking me out. I now have two 25 pound hams on ice in my cooler waiting to be processed because I don’t know which recipe to follow. I want them to turn out perfect. I have all the ingredients listed out on the country brown sugar cure. I don’t have a cooler or a refrigerator that can hold these hams. My only option is to keep them on ice until I can cure them, or last option is to freeze them. So the recipe called for 2 oz California Ham Spice 0.24 oz Sodium Erythorbate, 2 oz Cold Phosphate for a 24 pound ham and 2 gallons of water with the 2lb of brown sugar cure which was wrong. So it’s 2 lb per 1 gallon of water… The final temp changed too from 160 to 145 degrees??? Why the change? I need all the help I can get within the next couple days to get the right recipe down to be able to get the best hams I can get. Thank you!!!

[Jonathon]

Okay, ignore everything else. This is going to be a recipe tailored for you based 24 lb ham weight:
First, we are going to make your injection, ingredients for that will be:
Get 1 gallon of water and mix in 2 oz of your cold phosphate (mix really really well and this ingredient HAS to be first)
Use 2 lb of country brown sugar cure to the 1 gallon of water
Mix in 0.85 OUNCE of the California Ham Spice to the 1 gallon of water

Next you are going to inject to 10%:
Your ham(s) weighs 24 lb now, when you are finished injecting they should weigh 26.4 lb as they now have 2.4 lb of the solution mixed in.

Then we will make your cover brine:
Weigh your remaining solution 1 gallon of water is about 8 lb, 2 lb of cure (other additives negligible) so you have 10 lb but you injected 2.4 lb into your hams so you should have 7.6 lb of solution left. Now, take 7.6 (or whatever your left over actually weighs) and add that amount again of fresh water. This gives you your 50% strength cover brine. How you are going to cover this for 3-4 days I don’t know, don’t freeze it though. My suggestion would be to get something like a Stark Butcket Liner and use that to encapsulate the hams and the cover brine but you have to do something here. Just injecting and moving on isn’t going to allow the cure to equalize in the meat and to allow the cure time to work. If you had added something like sodium erythorbate you could just hold for 24 hours but even then 3 days is really going to give you a better flavor profile

For thermal processing:
1 Hour at 120° with no smoke
2 Hours 140° and begin smoking
4 Hours at 190° until internal temperature reaches 145° Ham doesn’t need to be cooked to 160° as it is a whole muscle meat. If you are making a ground and formed ham then it needs to go to 160°. I have no idea why we did 160° in our initial video, I am adding a note to that but leaving the 160° n there as well, it isn’t going to hurt anything.

If you have any other question before you start please start a new topic as Urgent, that’ll get my attention quicker than a normal post will.

[cu_hunting]

Thank you very much!!! You are awesome! I do have sodium erythorbate, as I bought all ingredients from the first recipe on hoa to make a ham. I have food grade buckets and the liners too, I am all set! Thanks again!

[cu_hunting]

Also you want to cook pork to 160 degrees to prevent Trichinosis… curing smoking doesn’t kill the parasite.

[Jonathon]

cu_hunting My understanding is that the USDA lowered the requirement of pork to 145 after the # of trichinosis cases from pork fell to an absurdly low level. Now, that isn’t going to be of comfort to anyone who does happen to get it but I believe the studies they did found bear to be the biggest offender.

[cu_hunting]

Jonathon commercial pork is much safer than home grown pork like my hog that I butchered last Saturday.

[TexLaw]

Jonathon HERE is that study you referred to. It was a survey done by the CDC in 2015. They found that USA commercial pork was the source of 2 whole cases in the USA from 2011-2015. Bear was tied to 25.

cu_hunting As it turns out, that survey also tied only 2 cases to farm-raised swine.

[Jonathon]

TexLaw Thanks for finding that!

[cu_hunting]

Jon thank you for all your help!!! Quick question if I use sodium erythorbate with all the ingredients mentioned, do I let it soak for just 24 hours or can it soak longer? Will it become too salty? Does it need rinsing and soaking in water after the soak? Thank you so much!!! Too bad you don’t have a tip jar that I could donate to… You have been an amazing help to me and I greatly appreciate it!!!