need advice on cooking my easter ham

[Brian Collins]

i have never cooked a ham and will be new experience on wsm 18.5 for me. i am going to cook a cumberland gap semi boneless ham. it is ready to eat already... so i gues it will be called double smoked when done. i plan on using plum wood on the smoke since it is really light in flavor and the ham is already hickory smoked. is 275 a good target temp and how long do you think it would take for a 11.5 lb ham to cook? just curious so i can figure out if i will cook easter sunday or the day before. all help is appreciated.

 

[Nicolas]

hi brian,
i've got a 22lb pork leg brining in my fridge right now to cook for easter sunday. my experience has been that the temperature doesn't matter with this piece of meat. it's not like brisket or ribs or butt etc.,. it's more like turkey or chicken in that you can cook it at as high of a heat as you want to your desired internal temperature. the last one i did was for christmas, it was 25lbs, and it went in the smoker right out of the refrigerator so it was somewhere around 38 degrees to start out. i had all the vents open 100% and even cracked the door after a while to get the temperature up higher. it hit 145F after about 7 hours. this time i'm going to crack the door from the beginning and try and get it up to a steady 300 or 350 even. but either way i'd give yourself a minimum of 7 hours and maybe an extra hour for a resting period. the day before is fine if you dont mind serving it cold. but if you're serving it cold then why cook it again?

 

[Dave/G]

Take a look at this if you haven't yet. This is a ready to eat ham that Chris A did and is in the cooking section. The main thing is you're only heating it as it's already cooked. I don't know about using more wood on a hickory smoked ham.
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/ham3.html

 

[K Kruger]

You can use more wood if you want it extra smoky. What you cannot do is cook it at a high temp - or even moderate temps. The meat is already cooked. All you are looking to do is to warm it to low serving temp. More than that and it will be dry. Heating it at higher temps means the exterior portions will heat too quickly and become dry before the interior has even warmed.

Leave the ham out of the fridge for an hour or two before heating.

 

[Brian Collins]

thanks dave for the link... will try that one out for sure..looks yummy