Cured hams for Christmas

Hey everyone, I hope all my US counterparts had a great Thanksgiving. :becky: Been seeing a lot of turkey pron and it all looks great :heh:, but I've been working on Christmas, cured hams specifically. I have been messing with my own brining recipe for freshly cured smoked hams and it's now getting to where I want it to be. This last one actually surprised me! A little background info: In the past, out here the majority of hams came from one very big local company (mild cured, smoked hams) they have always been high quality and tasted great but there is a downside... almost everyone's ham had the same basic flavor profile. So anyways, I was surprised at how great MY ham tasted & how different it was! But not only with the taste but the texture... the texture was so much better than the local store bought hams.

For this Ham I used a 8# boneless boston butt. I brined it for 4 days with salt, sugar, cure#1 & some secret spices :thumb: When it came out of the brine I dried in the fridge for a day. I injected it with juice, water, honey and spices for a couple hours before onto the smoker with almond & lychee wood at 225 for about 6 hours. I started glazing at 140 with my pineapple-guava rum glaze & pulled it at 155 to coast it up to 160 while resting. I sliced up some for sammy's for the poker game & it was definitely a hit! Everyone commented on how great it tasted. I think the Christmas is looking a litter brighter :becky::eusa_clap

On to the pics:

The boneless butt after about 1 hour of brine (forgot to take one b4:doh




The dry cure mixture b4 adding to a gallon of water


Tied and hung in the smoker










Slicing for sammys




Oh yeah also had wings & the wife did up a lemon meringue pie. :thumb:




Still planning on doing a couple more to perfect the recipe and I think I'll be ready for the Christmas. :thumb:

Cheers

SmokinAussie said:

Phrasty,

That is awesome man... The flavour combo looks absolutely killer. Love the colour on the smoke too. What final temp did yu get this too????

Cheers

Bill

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Thanks Bill, Pulled it at 155 to get to a final 160.

Grillman said:

Wow...that Ham looks terrific. The wings too, and what appears to be a
Meringue pie of some type. Do they have Mango Meringue pies in Jamaica?

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:heh: I dunno if there's mango meringue pies out here, but it sounds like mango is gonna be in one next mango season! :thumb: Thanks for the idea. This is a lemon meringue.

thomasjurisd said:

I've never done a ham so I have a question: Do most hams have alot of fat running throughout or is it more dependant upon the cut? I ask because it looks like the ham in the pic has more fat than the typical spiral sliced versions I see in the store.

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Its just the cut of meat that I chose. This is a boston butt which is fattier than your regular leg hams. This one was amazing though. The fat just melts away in your mouth. You can definitely use a leaner cut of meat though. :thumb:

Cheers

MadCityJim said:

Are you also injecting the hams with the cure? I'm doing my first home cured one, no injection and am going to go 7-10 days for a 10lb shank half ham. 4 days seems short for a 8 lb butt.

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Yes I inject, I've found out I get a more uniform color when I inject. It was also boneless.

deguerre said:

Beautiful. Outstanding color. How does it compare texture wise to a shank or butt portion? Oh, and what was the evening's smoke?

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Hey Guerre, Hope you feeling better bro.
It is a bit fattier than the shank and more so for the butt (leg). But I think it has an awesome texture, the cut is known as a "cottage ham" but I think mine wasn't trimmed down as much. I just deboned the blade out the boston butt and tied it up. but all those small muscles in the butt have a very fine, smooth almost delicate texture. I'll be doing a couple more of these for the season. :thumb:

Oh and I broke out one of these for the poker game :heh:


Cheers