CURING AND

SMOKING HAM

You will need:

1 – bone-in fresh ham

1 meat pump injector

1# brown sugar cure

1 – quart cold water

Mix ½ lb. brown sugar cure with 1 quart cold water.

Mix until brown sugar cure is completely dissolved.

Draw cure into the meat pump.

Push needle all the way in the fresh ham.

Insert needle in ham and slowly pull out while injecting cure. This makes for a good distribution of the cure.

Stitch pump all around the ham. Be sure to hit around the bone. Ham needs to be pumped 10% of its weight. Ex: 10# ham x 10% = 1# cure needs to be pumped into ham.

Sprinkle brown sugar cure (not mixed with water) on ham.

Rub cure on all sides of ham.

Place pumped and rubbed ham into clear plastic bag.

Tie bag shut and put in frig for 7 to 10 days to cure. Large hams will take 10 days for curing process to complete.

Take ham out of frig and rinse with cold water to remove excess cure. Let it sit at room temp for 1 hour.

Place ham in smoker.

Open damper wide open to eliminate humidity.

Turn heat to 130 – 140 degrees for 1 to 1 ½ hours.

Check to see if surface is dry. Surface needs to dry for smoke to penetrate the ham.

When ham is dry to touch turn the smoke house to 150 – 160 degrees.

Close damper by ½.

Add sawdust pan. It usually takes two pans to get nice color. Approximately 2 hours.

After 2 hours turn temp up to 109 – 200 degrees with damper closed to keep in heat. Cook until internal temp is 150 – 155 degrees.

Take out smoked ham and let it sit at room temp for an hour to cool. Place in a plastic bag and put in frig overnight.

Take a knife and slice one end of ham to the bone.

Use hand saw to cut through the bone.

Do the same thing on the other end of the ham.

This makes two nice end roasts.

Remove center bone and cut into ham steaks.

Wrap and freeze, easy to make, delicious to eat.