Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

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flyfishingpastor
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Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#1

Post by flyfishingpastor »

After getting tired of too-salty hams and bacons, and too much nitrates and nitrites and other preservatives and having some extra time on our hands during the pandemic, my wife and I began curing and smoking our own meats. I just recently bought 1/2 a heritage hog. We cured the pork belly, the ham and the link sausages. The pork belly (bacon) and the sausage turned out great. The ham was good, but not great. I currently have used a basic cure (mostly salt & brown sugar and whatever herbs I'm favoring at the moment - hanging the raw bacon for 7-12 days) that I use, with variations, on all the meat that I want to smoke and cure.

I had the butcher cut the ham into "roasts" so I didn't have a huge chunk of meat to smoke. I ended up with 4, 4 to 5 lb "roasts." 1 I used with my usual cure. The other 3 were cured in a commercial brine mix. The dry cure ham was pretty good. The 3 brined pieces are way too salty (even after just 5 days in the brine - they recommended 10 - and soaking in cold water for 2 hours, changing water twice) and even though have the same basic salt and sugar ingredients the hams were nasty - but my dog loves 'em! :)

Anyone have a trusted recipe that is a dry rub based, containing no preservatives except the salt? I use cure and I smoke the meat (either apple or hickory woods) and then freeze it right away.

Pat

3creeks
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#2

Post by 3creeks »

:popcorn I'm here for all things smoked meat and can't wait to learn new stuff. Getting a smoker was on my list for a long time and I wish I'd done it years ago. I don't have any advice for you on this but, like I said, I'm here to learn.

buckaroobanzai
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#3

Post by buckaroobanzai »

I’ve only bought previously prepared Hams at the store, then put them in my smoker. My wife makes a pretty great brown sugar & pomegranate glaze for the ham.

I had a big bone in black bear ham I was going to do last year, but decided at the last moment to bone it out and do black bear pastrami. Was delicious.

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flyfishingpastor
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#4

Post by flyfishingpastor »

3 creeks. I am, in no way, an expert on smoking meat. I have had a smoker of some kind for 40 years or better and we've used them a LOT. But, we never really got into charcuterie - other than buying it. But, since the pandemic hit, we started making our own bacon, sausage and hams. We bought the pork, raw, from wherever we could get the best price and turn it into the basic breakfast versions you find in your stores - only without the nitrites and nitrates. We've actually gotten pretty good on the bacon and sausage and decided it was time to try a next step. We bought a half of a heritage breed pig that we found locally. We gave the butcher instructions on how we wanted it cut. We did pretty well on the bacon and sausage, as I said in my first post. But the hams turned out pretty average. So I hope someone on here has lots of experience in smoking hams and has a that they like and are willing to share.

There are, of course, a bazillion such recipes on youtube (which I love) but we've tried a couple of them and were left wondering if they had actually TRIED the recipe they were putting out. Hence the request for recipes that you have actually tried and liked enough to make it your "go-to" recipe. :)

Pat

3creeks
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#5

Post by 3creeks »

Smoking my own pastrami is on my list and that will be the most exotic thing I've done to date. I'm still enamored with the simplicity and great taste of a couple of smoked chickens every now and then, or a smoked brisket. I bought a Pit Barrel Cooker, which is not a smoker in the traditional sense, but the taste it imparts in a shorter cook is out of this world. 2 hours for chicken, 5-6 for brisket or Boston butt.

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cheffy
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#6

Post by cheffy »

A dry cured ham is going to take longer to cure than a brined one due to the osmosis. Your nasty ham brine was probably assuming you were using a large bone in ham not roasts. Ill see if I still have some recipes on my desktop Iknow I have some hard cooies but they are packed.

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flyfishingpastor
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#7

Post by flyfishingpastor »

Cheffy;

Actually, I had the butcher cut the ham into roasts so it wouldn't take up the entire smoker. I ended up with 4, 4-6 lb "ham roasts."

Pat

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Flykuni3
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#8

Post by Flykuni3 »

Very glad to see this thread, did my first smoke on Sunday, baby back ribs. In hindsight they were great and the fam liked them, but I think they could have used half an hour more on grill (went 4.5 hours as it was), and sauce added closer to finish (went on about 1.5 hours close to end). For the cook I was at 250 then down to 200 for last two hours. But very happy with my thrift shop (Char-Broil) basic smoker, did some repair, bent doors back to shutting as tight as possible, scraped grill good (they were in good shape, no rust thank god). So onwards for here -- damn but needed a good shower, I smelled like a uncleaned chimney at dinner.

Probably doing chickens this weekend, anyone have a good marinade and/or rub recipe I can try?

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Brooks
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Re: Anyone have a good recipe for smoking hams?

#9

Post by Brooks »

I’ve found that a good simple chicken rub is Lawry’s season salt augmented with smoked paprika, onion salt, and powdered garlic.
And black pepper. Patted on liberally.

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