cured ham

[Piker]

http://s357.photobucket.com/albums/oo11/piker_dave/?action=view&current=Davesfolder002.jpg[/img] Here are a couple of pictures of the ham I recently cured. It was done with wet brine and turned out great. I did not smoke it but put it in water at a constant 170 degrees until an i.t. of 160 was reached,cooled in frig overnite and started eating. I can tell that I will use a stringer brine next time. The ham tastes great but its not a bit salty or spicey.

[Tenpoint5]

Looks Good Piker.  What is that a Tuna in the last pic?

[sherlock]

Piker,

Is this right, you simply placed a boneless fresh ham in brine and heated at 170 deg until IT reached 160 deg???????????????????????????

What kind of brine did you use?

I wonder how it would be to cold smoke it after it cooled down.

[Piker]

Yes that is a bluefin tuna caught Nantucket Sound last year. It weighed 125 lbs and was great eating. As for the ham I brined it for 4 days. The recipe was 1 gal. of water,I cup of salt 3tps.of cure 1/2 cup of sugar 1tps of pickling spice and 1/2 tps of whole cloves. What I did was as Habs said put the ham in the container, filled it with water, took the ham out measured the water and adjusted the recipe accordingly. Actually I weighed the water and it was 3 lbs. so as water weighs 10 lbs I used 1/3 of the recipe. As I said the ham is very mellow so next time I will use a bit stronger a brine Thks Piker

[Piker]

Also I did not use the brine to heat it I just heated plain water. For the 4 lb. loin it took about 1 1/2 hrs. Thks Piker

[sherlock]

Alright. Now it makes sense to me. I confuse very easily.

Thanks Piker

[Piker]

I went back to the recipe I used and it said you could smoke cold or just using the bradley smoker without the element on for 4 or 5 hrs and then cook it in the water. Or cook and smoke at the same time until an i.t. of 160 is reached but he said it would probably would be harder and drier. I think I will try it anyways next time,just make sure the water is full and maybe do some basting thks Piker