Ham in progress

I am making a ham for easter time. I ordered a berkshire ham and a belly this week from a local producer. I picked them up today, and to my surprise the belly was 12lbs and the ham weighed in at a whopping 30lbs. This bugger is huge! The hogs were slaughtered last night. I was told they were oinking and pooping yesterday. It doesn't get much fresher than that.

I started last night by making the brine cure solution and cooling it off over night. I am planning to use the dizzy pig recipie.



Here are the dry ingredients to be mixed with 30 cups of water. I boiled 16 cups of the water and mixed in the dry ingredients. Then I put that in my food bucket with 14 cups of cold water. The bucket then went outside in the snow to cool off.



The ham and belly on the ride home. I'm not anywhere near a good photographer. There is a lot of optical illusions happening to make the ham look smaller. The belly is sitting up 4 inches off the floor and you can't see the face of the ham.


Tonight I'll get more pics of the ham while I'm getting ready to cure it.

My plan is to inject it and cure it for 10 days. Then cold smoke it a few evenings and maybe overnight. I'm not sure how to know when it's been cold smoked enough. I'm guessing it'll look right at a certain point. Then I'll let it sit a couple days and cook it up in the smoker and glaze it at the end.

I'll keep posting updates as progress happens!

I got the ham in the brine cure solution this evening. Here are some pics of the process.


For those not lucky enough to have snow. Here is a pic of the brine solution yesterday cooling off outside







These are some pics of the ham out of the cyrovac.


After unwrapping, it was time to remove the thick layer of fat. I didn't know how to do it so I cut out a large square then worked my way around.





The fat is mostly all removed.



Time to inject it. I injected about 10 full pumps, a lot of it along the bone.



Here is my first shot at filling the bucket. It wasn't full all the way.




Time to make another batch of cure solution.



It's full! I didn't take a pic of the 3rd batch of solution



Here it is in the fridge sitting next to the belly. I had to add another shelf to make it not bow as much. It's pretty heavy!



Here is the bag of trimmed fat that is waiting to be turned into lard.


I'm not good at words but I can take pics, when I remember. I'll keep updating as the process moves along!

Pyle's BBQ said:

Great looking start. Where did you pick this up from? I want to get a belly and do some bacon.

Click to expand...

I got these from Eden Farms. They have an office in Des Moines where you can pick up stuff that you ordered. They are very friendly. I recommend calling Tina! Email works great too. She responds super quickly.

I can't find cheaper bellies at my local butcher so I get the berkshire bellies from Eden Farms since they are the same price.