Wet Curing my ham for Christmas!

[Wampus]

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!

[bluetang]

Originally Posted by Wampus

Can't wait to see how this thing turns out
MORE TO COME!

I can't wait either! Dang that sounds good.

[chicagokp]

Looks like a great start!! What's the Briner?

[WineMaster]

Where do you get one of those brine buckets?

[centexsmoker]

this will be the best ham yo ever put in your mouf! Our was destroyed in minutes. Doing it again for christmas. So much fun and it blew everyone's minds that we did it ourselves

[Wampus]

Originally Posted by chicagokp

Looks like a great start!! What's the Briner?

Originally Posted by WineMaster

Where do you get one of those brine buckets?

Brother swamprb turned me onto it. He posted about it and I ordered one the next day. Here's a link:
http://www.thebriner.com/

Since I've had it, I've brined 2 - 16 lb turkeys (not together), I've had 6 whole 5 lb chickens in it with a little room to spare and that 16.5 lb ham only took up about half the space.

I love it. A little pricey but it's easier than dealing with multiple pots or buckets if I'm trying to brine lots at once. Food safe, snap on lid, easy to clean and the lockable thing that keeps the meat submerged is great too.

[JONESY]

Cant wait to see how this turns out.

[NBBD]

Looks good so far! Thanks for the info on the briner

[Bourbon Barrel BBQ]

That's pretty crazy you started that this weekend. I processed a hog on Saturday and started brining my own ham the same day you did with a slightly modified version of that brine. I don't have the fancy brine bucket just a couple ceramic plates holding mine down. I'm holding off on the second ham to see how this one turns out. I actually got after my ham and removed the aitch and the longer shank bone. I figure a stockinette and smoke will firm everything all back up. :)

[Crazy Harry]

I like that brine bucket you have, but the web site, http://www.thebriner.com/ doesn't say haw big it is.

[seattlepitboss]

Did one of those recently, same recipe. I use a Cambro food container with lid, clear plastic, kind of like a 6-gallon square bucket. Anyway, my advice to you is to take their number of days brining as a minimum. It takes a long time for the brine to penetrate a whole ham. Leave it in a few more days, maybe a week.

When I smoked mine, I smoked at my usual 225F to about 155 and ya know, that wasn't enough either. I broke mine down into parts and re-smoked them to 160 and after that second cook, put the bigger sections on my Globe slicer set to real thin and shaved the ham out. Now *that* way tasted KILLER!

just my two cents worth .. seattlepitboss

[---k---]

Can I come over for Chistmas dinner?

[Bourbon Barrel BBQ]

Originally Posted by seattlepitboss

Did one of those recently, same recipe. I use a Cambro food container with lid, clear plastic, kind of like a 6-gallon square bucket. Anyway, my advice to you is to take their number of days brining as a minimum. It takes a long time for the brine to penetrate a whole ham. Leave it in a few more days, maybe a week.

When I smoked mine, I smoked at my usual 225F to about 155 and ya know, that wasn't enough either. I broke mine down into parts and re-smoked them to 160 and after that second cook, put the bigger sections on my Globe slicer set to real thin and shaved the ham out. Now *that* way tasted KILLER!

just my two cents worth .. seattlepitboss

I'm hoping since I deboned mine the brine will get down inside and penetrate the meat better.