Anyone ever smoked a fresh ham still frozen?

My son has one that I'd guess to be about 15 lb. It's BIG. And it's not fully thawed. Can we just put it on the smoker or do we need to wait for it to be fully thawed?
I don't see why not. We'd just need to allow extra time to thaw. We'd be smoking at a lower temperature - not trying for a land speed record.


Merry Christmas and Thanks!

Edit: (Can't see how to edit: Maybe took too long, maybe need more coffee.)


20 lb. It's a 20 lb fresh ham. About 9 Kg I think. It's thawing in the refrigerator and we plan to smoke it Sunday so it will be partially thawed. I'll follow up with results.

Result was not 100% successful. There was still some ice evident when my son rubbed the ham, but I didn't see how much because I was preparing the kettle. Incidentally a 20 lb/9kg ham fits perfectly on a 22"/55cm kettle :-D It went on about 10:15 AM and it looked like this at 7 hours in. Temperature was holding between 300-350°F/150-175°C.





About an hour later (and with the temperature probe reading 167°F/75°C we sliced some off for dinner.




It was pretty good.


We left it on to cook a little longer as my son prefers his pork falling apart like a butt when you pull it. After dinner I suggested we might not want to leave it on too long as I don't think a ham has as much fat to keep it moist as a butt so we pulled it. After it cooled a few minutes, I broke it down so it could be portioned for storage. I was surprised to find the bottom of the ham still bloody. Temperature in that portion was about 110°F/43°C. It's pretty clear that that portion was still frozen when the meat went on to the kettle and as a result was way behind the rest of the ham. A consequence of this is that now the left overs (and there are plenty!) have to be fully cooked rather than just reheated as even the fully cooked portions were contaminated with the undercooked meat juices.


Perhaps this might have worked better had I kept the temperature lower throughout the cook. That's easier with a smoker than a kettle as with this setup the kettle likes to run a little on the hot side, even with the vents stopped down a bit. It's possible that the heat was uneven, though I've never had that problem with this setup (firebrick segregating an indirect fire.)


My suggestion is to avoid cooking until the meat is fully thawed. If that's not possible, be more thorough probing the meat for cold spots to establish doneness.