Ham help

[hosshunter]

I want to try and smoke a fresh ham. I tried a front bonesless shoulder as an experiment and it worked well. I used a brown suger cure from Curleys in what he calls a dry rub. You inject the meat ( I used 1/2 the recommended amount as the full amount was to salty for me) and then rub the meat with the cure lightly put in a bag and put in fridge for 5-10 days (I did 5). After you pull it out you rinse it with water then let it air dry at room temp. for at least 2 hours. In the mean time pre heat smoker to 130 degrees with vent wide open. Place meat into smoker for 2 hours no smoke to do additional drying. If dry to the touch after 2 hours close vent to 1/2 way open raise temp to 150 degrees and smoke 2 hours (I used apple) then close vent and  raise temp to 180 degrees and cook until an internal temp of 155 degrees pull out and let set 1 hour then bag and put in fridge overnite. slice the next day. The front shoulder came out like very good ham.

When I do the fresh ham do I have to trim the ham well (my family like the skin) and do you see any improvements or tweaks to the above or just a all out better way to do it. Thanks for your help in advance

[Habanero Smoker]

Your way sounds alright. If you are getting good results, I would continue to do the same as you did the first time, except you my want to try a wet cure (pickle). If you hams are too salty out of the cure, you may try soaking to remove some of the salt.

I've cured a few hams, and smoke them. I feel the quickest and easiest way to cure ham is using a wet cure (pickle), and I feel you will get better and more consistant results doing it that way when curing large cuts of meat. I'm not familiar with Curley's cures. I use Sausage Maker's Maple Ham Cure, and I'm hooked on that for ham, and it's also good for bacon.

I do trim the skin off, and most of the fat before curing. It takes much longer for the cure to penetrate the skin and fat, so it is better to remove it prior to curing to make sure the whole ham is cured. I have brined (not cured) picnic shoulders with the skin on. When I brine shoulders with skin, I make 1" slits, about every 3" in the skin; just go deep enough to penetrate down to the meat. I'm not sure this method will work for curing.

I will scrape as much fat from the skin that I can, and save the skin and throw that in the smoker when I smoke the ham, and use the skin for flavoring bean, greans and soups. I suppose you can put the skin in the cure while you are curing the ham, I will have to try that the next time. Or you can cut the skin up and deep fry it to make cracklin. I also save the fat and melt that down to make lard, and use the lard for bread.

Here's a link to the method that I use. Since that post, depending on how I am going to finish cooking the ham I now only bring my hams up to either 127°F or 137°F; while it is in the smoker, then finish them in the oven.

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=4376.msg39237#msg39237