Ham lunch meat

[Northern_Smoke]

Well after much debate, reading and talking with some forum members i decided to try a couple of smaller hams. I bought a 15 pound pork loin and broke it down into 3 5 pound pieces. 1 piece I turned into Canadian back bacon but the other 2 I tried a black forest ham recipe on. The wife and kids asked for home made ham lunch meat instead of what you get from the super market. I thought i would try one done to temp in the smoker while the other one was done Sous Vide style. I have done a few beef roasts this way for lunch meat and it is amazing. The smoker was forgot about due to work for an extra hour or so and my IT ended up at 160. But overall the texture was still very pleasing and the flavor was good. The sous vide ham was done in a pot of water held at 158 and the idea was to go for 16 hours. Again due to unexpected work problems on a weekend ( :( ) it ended up going an extra 2 hours which shouldn't be too big of a deal with this style of cooking. What i did find was that the fat rendered out much more than the smoker ham. This seemed to leave it a bit dryer. The texture of the grain seems much finer with the sous vide ham. More like elk meat for any of the hunters out there.

So was it worth it to cook for what should have been 16 hours? I am on the fence with this. I think if you want to change the grain texture to something finer that holds together when sliced, this is an amazing way to go. The other nice thing is with a thicker cut of meat, you can cold smoke it for an hour and then put it in the water and this drives the smoke flavor straight to the center of the meat.

Smoker ham is on the left and Sous Vide ham is on the right.

[squirtthecat]

Interesting!   Care to share your BF ham recipe?

[jiggerjams]

X2!!

[SamuelG]

X3!!!


SamuelG

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[viper125]

x4 great looking ham!

[Northern_Smoke]

Ok here it goes. I got this from a recipe book that my grandmother had when she came across from Germany 85 years ago.

These are the quantities I used for 5 pounds of meat. I am not sure but I think it was the corriander that gave it a different taste. Not bad but just not what we have come to expect ham to taste like. Either way it does taste good. We have gone through 2 300gram bags for sandwiches in the last 5 days

1 gallon water
8oz kosher salt
2 oz white sugar
2 oz brown sugar
4T Crushed peppercorns
4 tsp toasted crushed coriander
4 T juniper berries or 4 oz gin
10 bay leaves
2 cloves crushed garlic
Cure for proper amount of meat used

I cured for 5 days and did not inject the meat. My cuts were only about 2.5-3 inches thick but i think with anything thicker you would want to inject at the 10-15% ratio. When it came time to smoke it I found that I only had oak pucks and I must say that it was a pleasent flavor.

[SiFumar]

X5  Thanks for sharing recipe.

[jiggerjams]

X6  ;)

[Northern_Smoke]

This was the first time I had made this and figured a few things I might change now that we have eaten some. I think I put my finger on the different flavor. The recipe calls for 10 bay leaves which I am going to cut in half for next time. I think I would do another clove of garlic. And finally I might try this as a dry cure. Wiith the thinner cuts of pork I will be using for sandwich meats I think a 5 day cure will do it since it works on the back bacon. I enjoy the texture of the back bacon made with the dry cure from the recipe site and think it will work better as sandwich meat (for my taste anyway)

Hope this gives someone a starting point for a slightly different ham :)

[Northern_Smoke]

I would be interested to see what other people think if they try this recipe. Since it was my first time, i had no idea what to expect. This is not a flavor like a typical North American style black forest ham but i definately think it is something to build off of.

[squirtthecat]

I'm going to give it a shot next time center cut loins go on sale. (after Turkey day, I hope)