dizzy pig home cured ham

7/27/2019 Dizzy Pig Home Cured Ham

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Dizzy Pig HomeCured Ham

Occasionally the stores

come out with some great

prices on larger cuts of

beef and pork, and

recently a buddy and I took

advantage of one of these

sales to stock up our

freezers with whole pork

shoulders for future pork

bbq caters.

This last time out we

noticed alongside the

shoulder roasts some whole

pork leg roasts at the same

price of 99 cents/lb. 'Why

not give home-cured hammaking a shot?' we

thought, and what follows

is the result of that cook.

Dizzy Pig Home-Cured Ham

As with many of our ventures into the world of curing and brining, we owe a debt of

thanks to Reg Pelletier of Niagara Falls, Ontario who has introduced us to this delicious

hobby and provides a prompt and thorough response to any questions we have along

the way. The following recipes are 'Dizzyfied' versions of those Reg has given us as

wonderful starting points.


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Ingredients

The ingredients to create the curing brine were (from lower left):

- 3 tablespoons Pickling Spice

- 3 cups Salt

- 3 cups Brown Sugar

- 3 tablespoonsDizzy Pig Cow LIck Steak Rub

- 8 tablespoons Prague Powder #1 (aka Modern Cure)*

- 4 cloves Garlic (center)

Bring 240 ounces of cold, filtered water to a boil along with above ingredients until salt

and sugar is dissolved and flavor from other ingredients infuses the liquid, about 10-12minutes.

Remove from the stove and cool until liquid is 38F, which is ideal temp for brining and

curing.

*- Tender Quick cure can be substituted for the Prague Powder #1. If it is, use in place

of salt and the curing agent, i.e. in this recipe use 3 cups TQ and no other salts or

cures.

Just to show you which cut of the pig we are using, here is a picture of the 'Whole Pork

Leg' that we are using to make our ham. It is a hind leg portion, running from the shin

(shank) up to the hip joint. This particular one weighed in at 21.5 lbs, with the ham

bone intact.
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For making the ham, we needed to skin the rind and outer fat off the pork leg. Some

knife skills and patience is required, but 10 or 15 minutes will get the job done. Don't

forget to take all the fat (and there will be quite a bit), put it in a pot and set on

minimum setting on stovetop. 2-3 hours will render out the fat, and when you run that

liquid through cheesecloth, you will have about 3 lbs of beautiful snow-white lard for

baking and cooking. Cooks swear that lard is the premier fat to use in pastry

making......

Also, at this point you'll need to strain off some of the curing brine for injecting into

the meat. You'll need about 1 cup of injecting brine for every 4-5 lbs of meat. Ourtrimmed ham was about 18 lbs, so we have 4 cups of strained brine ready to inject.


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Inject the ham at that cup:4-5 lb meat ratio, making sure that you inject the curing

brine to and around the big bone running through the leg. This is a very important step

in creating a successful end product.

It's now time to get the leg roast into the curing brine. Here, my buddy Bryan Brown

provided a plastic cooler that was a perfect fit for our roast! The remaining liquid just

covered the roast perfectly and some ceramic dishes with a plastic-wrapped metal

weight kept the roast submerged (with all that salt in the brine, the ham will want to

surface, which is NOT good). Also, this is a good time to remind you to use only non-


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reactive cooking vessels for contacting the brining liquid; plastic, Pyrex and ceramic

are good choices.

The leg will sit in the curing brine for 8-10 days depending on its size and your personal

schedule. Our 18 lb roast is on the large size, so we are going for the full 10 day cure.

Ensure that it is refrigerated in conditions that keep the temperature of the brine as

close to that ideal 38F temp as possible!

After the 8-10 day curing period, congratulations are in order; you've just turned a pork

leg into a full-fledged cured ham!! The meat will have that distinct smell of and pink

flesh tone of the ham you are used to.

The next step is to draw some of the salt off/out of the ham. How much depends onyour particular tastes. What Bryan and I did was give the roast a quick rinse to get the

surface salt off and to also remove some of the residual seeds and peppercorns stuck to

the ham from the pickling spice, and then we soaked it for 2 hours in cold water. A

change of water and then 2 more hours in a second coldwater bath and we were ready

to get smokin'!


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For smoking the ham, we decided to fire up Bryan's Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM)

bullet smoker. The temp on this day was -15celcius, so we wanted something that

wouldn't need much babysitting.

With the fire stabilized around 240-250F, and a nice chunk of applewood in the cooker

for smoking purposes, the ham went on in an indirect set-up with a waterpan filled

with sand providing the buffer between the meat and the fire. Our target internal

temperature was for between 140 and 160F.

As the ham approaches your target temperature, (we went for 160, but in hindsight, I'd

aim more for the mid-140's), it's time to get your glaze ready. I would recommend

starting to apply the glaze about 10 degrees shy of your ideal finishing temperature.


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Our 21.5 lb leg roast has finished up as a 14.5 lb skinless, cured and apple-smoked

glazed ham. Even with our curing brine and glaze factored in, we are looking at a

homemade ham costing about 1.50/lb. In addition to numerous meals and sandwiches

ahead, there's 3 lbs of snow white lard to use for baking and a meaty ham bone to start

a big hearty pot of ham and bean soup! A great value and a great result if you're willing

to invest a bit of time!

dizzy pig home cured ham

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