Ham two Ways
Preserving Food so you have it when you need it
Make Your Own Ham
Wet Cure (safer and easier to get right)
Ingredients:
1 fresh ham
1.5 gallon of water
5 lbs. of ice
2.5 cups salt (non-iodized, preferably pickling salt, but any non-iodized salt will work)
3 cups brown sugar (or any sugar or combination of white, brown, honey, molasses, or whatever)
2.5 tablespoons pink curing salt (Prague Powder No.1)
¼ cup pickling spices
This yields about a cup:
· 2 tablespoons whole mustard seeds
· 1 tablespoon whole allspice berries
· 2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
· 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or more to taste
· 1 teaspoon ground ginger
· 2 bay leaves, crumbled
· 2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
· 6 whole cloves
(Adjust quantities based on the amount of meat being cured)
Wet Cure Instructions:
1. In a pot, bring the water to boil.
2. Then, add all the salt, sugar, curing salt, and spices, stirring until all salt and sugar are dissolved.
3. Next, turn off heat and let it cool to room temperature while the spices steep.
4. Pour the cooled water and ice into a large pot or plastic container (as long as it has a lid)
5. Add the ham to the pot and cover.
6. Place in a refrigerator. (Yes, you need a spare or to plan ahead.)
7. Allow to cure 1 day for every 2 pounds of ham.
8. After the ham has cured, remove it from the cure and rinse with cold water. Then, pat dry.
9. Put the cured ham in the refrigerator uncovered on a drying rack (I set a cooling rack in a large cake pan or cookie sheet with sides) over a pan for 48 hours to fully dry the exterior.
10. At this point you can cook it, freeze it, or smoke it to eat. Smoking for shelf storage (preservation smoking) to be covered after dry curing.
Notes:
1. All pork essentially tastes like pork chops unless you do something like curing to it, while ham is generally the better part of a rear quarter on a pig and pork treated this way will become ham or at least taste like ham.
2. If you do this with beef (usually brisket) it will make corned beef.
3. If you make corned beef and then crust it with fresh ground pepper and wrap it in plastic tightly for 3 days (before fully drying) in the refrigerator, you will make pastrami.
4. Pork belly, jowl, and fat back will come out as bacon when treated this way.
Dry Curing (harder more risk of getting it wrong and spoiling your meat. Meat last longer without refrigeration when done correctly)
Ingredients:
1 ham
5 lbs. salt (non-iodized, preferably pickling salt, but any non-iodized salt will work)
5 cups white sugar
1 1/4 pink curing salt (Prague Powder No.1)
2 cups pickling spice ground
This yields about a cup:
· 2 tablespoons whole mustard seeds
· 1 tablespoon whole allspice berries
· 2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
· 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or more to taste
· 1 teaspoon ground ginger
· 2 bay leaves, crumbled
· 2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
· 6 whole cloves
Dry Curing Instructions:
1. Wash your ham and pat dry.
2. Put ½ layer of curing mix on a plastic tray as a bed for the ham.
3. Place ham on the tray.
4. Then cut a slit 2-3 inches wide all the way to the bone at each joint. (If this is done incorrectly the ham may not shed water quickly enough and might spoil.)
5. Pack the slits you made with curing mix as much as possible.
6. Then, cover the entire rest of the ham pushing hard with curing mixture.
7. Put the ham (on the tray fully covered in cure) in a cool, dry place 36-40 degrees for 18 days. (A cooler with ice works, the refrigerator, or if you are butchering in the late fall/early winter, a cooler on the back porch works as well.)
8. Check it after 18 days. When it is ready, the ham should be very firm to the touch and have lost a third to half of its starting weight due to dehydration.
9. Once it is firm you can freeze it or smoke it.
Smoking for Preservation, Not Cooking:
Smoking for preservation is generally a cold smoking process and should never exceed 100 degrees. To avoid spoilage, food set to be cold-smoked should already be cured and as dry as possible. It is best to place the food in a mesh bag and hang it in the smoking area. Then, apply constant hardwood smoke. (Softwood smoke, like cedar and pine, contains chemicals that taste horrible.) You can use oak, hickory, fruit wood, or anything you have on hand. Then, apply smoke as constantly as possible for three to five days, being carful to keep the temperature below 100 degrees. If you build your smokehouse and fire correctly, you should only have to tend it every 10-12 hours. I will cover building a cold-smoke house later.