Ham in progress

I'm a couple updates behind. Sorry about that but I did get pics of the process.

I took the ham out of the brine on day 16. The last one I did was injected and brined for 10 days. This one was much bigger so I was planning to do 14 days. That didn't happen so it ended up being 16. I don't have a good reason for the extra time other than I knew it wouldn't hurt an extra couple days.



Here is the ham fresh out of the brine.



and another


I rinsed off the ham. It was too big to lug upstairs to the kitchen sink and wouldn't fit nicely. I decided to put the ham on the table dump out the bucket and replace with cold water then rub it down. I did that three times and at the end the water stopped changing color



Here is the ham in water one of the times. At the end I left the ham in the water to soak and put it back in the fridge. I did the cold water soak twice. Once for about three hours and a second time for two hours.

After soaking in water I got it out of the bucket and patted it down with paper towels a lot. Quite a bit of liquid came out. THen with the assistance of my wife we put the ham in a ham bag. It didn't seem super strong so we put that in another ham bag and tied it to a hook.



Here is the ham hanging in the fridge. I had to add a second rack to hang on to so it was strong enough. I put the bucket under it over night. It leaked about a cup of liquid. That wouldn't have been very fun to clean up. I let it hang over night and most of the morning the next day.


Day 17 the ham went out to cold smoke. I am using my upright gasser just to be the cabinet. This ham is almost to big to fit inside. I had to hang out of the top and hook on to the chimney to keep it up high enough over the AMNPS. It also was stronger up there than hanging from 2 or 3 grates at the top.



Here it is hanging in the smoker. You can see the hole in the back of the chimney that I hung it from. Since it was hanging at the back I had to add two 1x2's to get the back side of the ham off the back wall. I put in the bottom grate just to make me feel better if it falls.



Here it is after 9 hours of cold smoking. Ignore the logic that tells you it should be dark out. This is right before the next cold smoke. The night pics with my phone don't turn out well.



Here it is back in the fridge after 9 hours of cold smoking.


It snowed on monday and was pretty cold so I stayed inside.

On day 19 (yesterday) I got the ham back in the cold smoker.


Here we are near the end of a 5 hour cold smoke (14total so far). Since I had it going it was a great time to do cheese. Normally I would put the cheese or nuts on the top rack that the meat is hanging from. Since I had to put the hook out the top that idea went out the window. The first time (2 days prior) I had the cheese too close to the AMNPS and it was too warm and cheese was sweating. This time I only did one piece at a time and kept it at the edge so it doesn't get too warm and to not get dripped on by the ham.

I planned on sold smoking again this evening but it's pretty cold here. I like it to be mostly above freezing. I don't have good reasoning for this. It just doesn't seem like it would work as well when the meat is freezing. I should put my thermometer out there to see how much the pellets keep it warm.

I'll post more pics as I make more progress.

NickTheGreat said:

Just found this thread. Appears you're local. If you need any help getting rid of any of that ham, I know a guy who really likes ham . . . :wink:

I'm gonna check out that Eden Farms link. I've heard of them, but never ordered anything from them

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There will be lots of leftovers. We actually got a vacuum sealer because it seemed silly to have this much ham go bad.

I recommend contacting eden farms. They're very nice. If you email them they respond quickly. They just sell primal cuts, no pork chops. And you don't get to pick sizes, the hogs come in and you get what ever the pig allows.

sent from my phone

Final Ham pics

Sorry to bring this thread from the grave but I've been busy lately and I never finished this post. It's been looming over my head and I just have to add the final pics. As normal, I got eager and didn't get pics of the ham directly out of the smoker.


I started removing the bones and remembered I had to get some pics.


Here is the femur removed. It is going to turn into a tasty treat later.



This is a good shot of the side that didn't get cut up while removing the bones.



Slicing in action!



We ate a delicious meal then vacuum sealed all the remaining ham and down to the freezer it goes.



I received no complaints about the femur bone.


You may have noticed the boxes of cereal for making chex mix. If you've ever had extra space in your smoker and not filled that space with a pan of chex mix, you are missing out! If seasoned cereal soaked in butter isn't already good enough, adding smokey flavor pretty much makes it awesome.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing this ham as it progressed (with a slight delay for the money shot).

NickTheGreat said:

And I'm gonna have to try that smoked Chex Mix. You just make it like normal and "cook" it on the smoker rather than the oven or microwave?

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Mix it up like you normally would. Then I put it in an aluminum pan (no holes or I think you will lose all the good stuff). I think the oven directions are 1 hour at 250F stirring every 15 min. To get it good and smokey I do it for about 2 hrs, making sure to stir it so everything is coated evenly and to check that it doesn't burn. The hardest part is not eating it immediately. I think the smokey flavor comes out better when it's cool and even better the next day.