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A good cured and smoked ham is a delicious meal choice anytime, but especially popular around holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and what better way to have a great family holiday dinner than to make your own smoked ham!? Jon and I will explain what ham is, how to make a homemade ham, and walk you through the whole process to help you make a fantastic ham that your entire family will love to eat.
Before we start, remember that all the seasoning, cure, additives, and additional supplies including gloves, food safe containers, and more that we use today can be easily purchased at one location by visiting waltonsinc.com. Walton's has Everything But The Meat!
So, Jon, why don't you go ahead and explain to us what smoked and cured ham is…?
A ham is the rear leg of a pig that has been cured through salting, smoking, and brining (or sometimes called pickling). Most ham cures contain nitrites which break down into nitric oxide gas through the curing process. The combination of nitrites and salt is what cures the meat, and salt also plays a role in lowering the water activity and making it inhospitable to dangerous microorganisms.
When picking out and buying a ham, make sure you get a fresh ham that is uncooked, unsmoked, and uncured with no extra additives to it. You just want a plain, fresh, whole pork leg. Many grocery stores don't sell fresh hams, so check with your local meat market or local butcher to find one.
To start making our homemade ham, we will need to inject the ham, soak it in a brine and cure solution overnight, then smoke and cook it.
Let's start out with our injection and brine process. While a traditional cover brine or pickle can be done with hams it is very difficult to do correctly because of the thickness of the ham. Often, the cure in the brine will "gas out", which means before the cure and nitrites can fully penetrate to the center of the ham, the nitrite will break down into nitric oxide gas before it can penetrate all the way to the center of the ham, and then it is released from the brine into the air. The best way to make a properly cured ham at home is to inject it. To do this you will need a marinade injector. You can find multiple types of injectors at waltonsinc.com under Equipment and Injectors. Today, we are using our 4 oz Stainless Steel Marinade Injector. It can be used to inject cures and seasonings into hams, bacons or any other meat you want to cure, season, or marinate.
Before you prepare your brine or pickle there are a few things we need to point out about the water you are going to use. At the time of preparation the water needs to be between 29 and 35 degrees F, and it should not be "hard" water and must be purified or potable water, so very low microbial levels. We recommend using either distilled or purified water, but tap water can be used but it should be placed in refrigerator overnight to allow it to cool down to around 35 degrees and allow any added chlorine to evaporate and not be added to your meat product.
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4 окт 2024
