Thanksgiving feast. Pron heavy
 

The humbling experience began 10 days ago. The ham went into the cure for a 10 day slumber.
18 LB ham
The cure:
2.5 cups kosher salt
4 cups brown sugar
2 Tbls peppercorns
1 Tbls cinnamon
1 Tbls cloves
3 bay leaves
Cured for 10 days. Cold water rinse for 1 day.

Brined the turkey for 24 hrs.
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups kosher salt
1/4 cup poultry spice
1/4 cup old bay
1/4 cup peppercorns
4 oranges
2 lemons

Started the ham at 9:30am over apple wood. Added the turkey at 10:30 and added a chunk of cherry wood. Ham was done at 145 at 2:30. Turkey was done at 160 at 3:00.

Both met rave reviews :) thanks for looking and Happy Thanksgiving!! Attachment 72763Attachment 72764Attachment 72765Attachment 72766Attachment 72767Attachment 72768Attachment 72769

Looks delicious.

Great job That was a feast

Very nice!

Thanks all

great gathering too!

they both look great!

was that a dry cure on the ham?

Wow, nice crowd, gotta love it.

How much liquid in the ham brine?

No dry cure on the ham. It was a wet cure. I used a 5 gallon food grade bucket. Got one from a local BBQ place. All in all I think I used about 3-4 gallons of water/cure. I use about 2 quarts of water to dissolve all the ingredients then refrigerate that for a day then put the ham in the bucket, dump in the cure then add as much water as needed till the ham is covered. Turned out great with the perfect sweet to salt ratio. Definitely not salty. Second year in a row I did this and it is awesome. Got plenty left over that I will slice up as thin as ya can see through for sandwiches.

Nice feast, great job! :thumb:

Shoot forgot the most important cure ingredient.
2 ounces of instacure #1 (pink salt)

I was wondering about that...

I've read you can do it with just the salt if u don't want to add the nitrite. On fact the cute didn't penetrant some of the ham and even those pieces tasted 'hammy' thought they were grey indicating the lack if nitrite. I am shocked that after 10 days the cure didn't penetrate fully. :) 12 days next year lol

I want to figure out how to do that so we can skip the nitrites...

Nice job! I'm thinking of tackling a ham but have to learn more about it first.