I have a 18.84 lb fresh ham (butt and shank portion together) that I made up a wet cure for from my AWESOME book,
Charcuterie.
I'm planning on doing their recipe to the TEE, so I made a brine with:
(heck, I even weighed the ingredients. Never done that before)
1 gallon of water
1 1/2 C (350 grams) Kosher salt
2 packed C (360 grams) dark brown sugar
1 1/2 oz (42 grams) pink salt
Here was the ham right out of the package:
Here's the other side:
After removing the skin:
Now I had to remove the aitch bone (but what the fark is THAT?). So after a google search, I found a video that helped a lot. Turns out it's the only bone I could see other than the two bones in the shank. HERE is the aitch bone....
It's a portion of the pelvis bone at the hop ball & socket joint.
After some trimming around what I could feel, my finger is touching part of the bone....
And finally removed....
Here's the ham dunked into the brine in my new favorite brining toy, THE BRINER (THANKS swamprb for turning me on to this!):
Held down with the lockable "holder downer thing":
And all sealed up with it's snap on lid in the garage fridge for a nice long rest.....
Now, after the skin and aitch bone were removed, the ham weighed in at 16.34 lbs. I'm supposed to cure it for 1/2 day per pound, so that means it will cure for 8.5 days. It'll come out of the brine when I get home from work next Tuesday. It'll rest in the fridge on a rack over a pan until the weekend, when it'll get smoked until the meat is 155 IT. I'll then warm it up in the oven on Christmas day.
Can't wait to see how this thing turns out!
MORE TO COME!
