Hamonster


 
j biesinger

j biesinger

TVWBB Platinum Member
The plan is to cure and smoke my own ham for Easter. The first step was inviting enough people over to insure it will be eaten (check). The second step was to talk the guy a restaurant depot into having a supply of fresh hams around (check). The third step was to pick it up.

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she weighs in at 21.54 pounds and cost me $26.71 ($1.24/lb).

I'm hoping to get her pumped up with the brine cure tomorrow and get her smoked the saturday before Easter sunday.

Feel free to offer suggestions. I've read conflicting recipes regarding the skin (leave it on or take it off) and I've yet to see if I can find info on removing the aitch bone.
 
So I dropped the hamonster(TM) into my 5 gal bucket while it was still in the cryo, and filled the bucket with cold water until it covered her. My bucket was a hold over from my home brewing days, and has nice gallon marks printed on it. I was hoping with all my might that once I removed the ham, I'd be left with 3 gallons, because all I had on hand was exactly 1 kg of salt and 1 kg of brown sugar. As luck would have it, that was exactly all the brine I would need.

so tripling the recipe in Charcuterie:

3 gal water
1000 g salt
1000 g brown sugar
126 g pink salt

I'm going to chill the brine over night, and tackle the aitch bone and skin tomorrow before pumping her.

hopefully I don't need to salt anything before I get to the store, because I emptied the kitchen
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Ah, so that's a Hamonster. Smoking it on the WSM I presume. You're a better man than I Gunga Din! Will be watching the progress... Good luck and Happy Easter.
 
Good luck with it j. Looking forward to seeing your results.

Nice comeback by the Sabres the other night.
 
Here's a raw ham that I did. And smoked.
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what's you opinion on the skin? I cant decide if I should remove it or not. I'm leaning towards removing it.

Nice comeback by the Sabres the other night.
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It must have been a crazy night at the arena. The Hab fans typically show up in force and can get pretty annoying. I could only imagine how unbearable they were for 57 min, it would have made ot all the sweeter. tonight's a big one, a win over ottawa and they clinch a playoff spot.
 
I've smoked two hams, smaller than this yours. Ham roasts, really. Anyhow, I removed the skin. The tought of crackling was really enticing, but I decided to keep it simple and removed it. I wasn't sure if crackling was possible after smoking for a long time close to 100 degrees as possible and then roasting it. Instead of worry about that, I just removed it. There was no issue with dry ham.

Here's a slideshow of my ham from last (Canadian) thanksgiving. The first two pictures are of my cold smoke. The rest are the roasting/glazing (which I did on the gasser) and serving. Note the plated pic there's a bit where the cure didn't penetrate. I did use a flavour injector, but still. This huunk of meat was in the cure for 8 days, I believe. Your monster will take closer to two weeks, I think.

ham slideshow

Home smoked ham is amazing. I love ham. I won't be able to do it this easter. Hopefully the in-laws find a good store bought one. I really like that you can control the salt. Most of the cured meats I make (incl. bacon) I find less salty, which is nice because it lets the other flavours shine through.
 
Wow, that's a dandy ham! I have one in the freezer from a hog I bought. Not sure what it weighs exactly, but i'm guessing in the 20# range. I'll be following this thread and then may just have to do mine up.
 
J

If you look at my photo I slit the skin to allow the fat to baste the ham. I guess it's a personal choice. If everyone did the same thing it would be a dull world.
 
This huunk of meat was in the cure for 8 days, I believe. Your monster will take closer to two weeks, I think.
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Ruhlman calls for 1/2 day per pound which puts me at 11 days. but I'm only going to get about a week. I'm going to shoot it up best I can tonight and get it going.

Your ham steak didn't look too bad, everything was pink, some spots more than others.

I've always wanted to try this. This site gives a recipe.

http://www.dizzypigbbq.com/recipesHam.html
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thanks for the link. I was set on leaving the skin on, but the lard is tempting.

man, I should have gotten this started earlier, time got away from me.
 
aitch bone came out easy enough. Despite not know the anatomy of the bone I managed to get it out without a ton of waste. My 6 year old daughter was really interested in the top of the femur, and thought it looked like an eye.

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I decided to skin the ham. I'm hoping to render the lard and since I was short on time I didn't want the skin to delay the curing. The skin came off really easily (in one piece) but unfortunately there wasn't a lot of fat under it. I left most of the fat that remained on the leg as is.

This shot is after it was injected:
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I tried to inject it as much as I could. I found it easiest to penetrate the ham at the but end. Along the sides it was tough to force the needle in, so once I did I used the same hole injecting at different angles. I'm thinking I should have left the skin on, scored it and used the score grid as a means to keep track of where I injected. I got kind of lost randomly sticking it all over.

Ever try dropping a 21 lb ham into 3 gallons of brine without making a cannonball like splash? good thing I was working in the garage!

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Usually not much fat on the leg to render. Back is where it's at.

11 days should be all right. at worse, you'll have some spots that are grey when it's cooked. most people will be impressed that you cured and smoked it yourself.
 
Usually not much fat on the leg to render. Back is where it's at.

11 days should be all right. at worse, you'll have some spots that are grey when it's cooked. most people will be impressed that you cured and smoked it yourself.
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The link post above mentions the quantity of lard that they rendered, and it seemed fairly significant. It was merely a side project. I'd have to find something to do with it any ways.

If I take it to sunday it'll be in the brine for 8 days. I'm not sure if I want to take it out a day early to cook it on sat so I just have to reheat it, or use sat to give it a soak in fresh water to get some cure back out. We could take a vote?

1) cure until sunday am
2) cure until sat and cook, reheat on sun
3) cure until sat, soak in water, cook on sun
 
3.

There's a fair amount of fat for rendering on the leg but more on the back. I leave it on. I make a paste rub that's hot, spicy and sweet. We eat the skin before carving.

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Fine without though too.
 
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