Meat storage after smoking/ keeping meat warm

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travisty

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
SMF Premier Member
Mar 10, 2014
559
169
Salt Lake City, UT
Hi,

First with my dilemma, on Thanksgiving I will be using a method I found in another thread to "re-smoke" a fully cooked ham that I have purchased, my problem is that we are doing thanksgiving with the inlaws and need to arrive there by 11, but not eating until 1:30 or so. I have a CharGriller Duo and cannot possible take that to their house... For the sake of detail it is just a small ham, literally the smallest they had, it is 6-7lbs.

Any ideas on the best way to keep the meat fresh/ warm for that time? I did search threads but couldn't find anything too similar to my inquiry. Thoughts/ ideas I had was either to --just smoke it the night before, vac seal it then boil it in the sealed bag. --Smoke it in the morning and just serve it cold, --put it info a slow cooker wrapped in something to keep it warm and fresh ( I have used the crock pot bags in the past tied at the top to finish off a pork shoulder in the oven, but not sure if that was even a good idea).

One other question I had which is semi related is what can smoked meat be wrapped in to keep it fresh/ warm after smoking. A couple of the BBQ joints around here appear to use some fort of wax paper looking bag that they wrap at least their brisket in. what is that and where do I get it?

Any advise/ opinions would be very welcomed, even if its just a link to another post I couldn't find. Thanks!!!
 
I would (and have before) smoke the day before to around 145 and refrigerate the ham. Then when you get to your destination you can glaze the ham, cover in foil, and place in the oven until it reaches 155-160. The glaze and foil will keep it from drying out when reheating. 
 
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When finished smoking the ham. Wrap it in foil and put it in a cooler and pack it with a couple of bath towels.

If you want it warmer or need to reheat it, then put it in a 200 degree oven for 45 mins when you get there.That paper your local bbq palaces are using is more than likely butcher paper.
 
Thank you for all of the info and advise!

Because of the situation I had what I decided to do was smoke it the night before, then I put it into a vac seal bag and sealed it up loosely. then the next day I opened it up and put it into one of those crock pot liner bags and sealed up the top of that with my vac sealer. I put it into the slow cooker on low about 3 hours before thanksgiving dinner, then about 20 min before I opened her up and she was just PERFECT! I sliced it all up and put it back into the slow cooker like that. It was a huge hit!

Now I am terrible with pictures and I always forget to snap a few, but here is what I actually did with the ham:

It was a store bought "Hickory Smoked" ham (bone in). First I scored the ham all over and also just stabbed a few places all the way into the bone, then I coated it with some Dijon mustard (for adheasion of rub) and then poured on just a bit of pure maple syrup. Then I made a rub or brown sugar, paprika, smoked salt, chili powder, cinnamon, and a bit of seasoned salt.

I use a Char Griller Duo with fire box, and have a few mods. I fired her up and got it to about 300d, smoked the ham with pecan chips and some apple-wood branches. After the first hour it was already starting to brown the glaze so I decided to turn her down to 200-225 and left it there for another 2 hours.

I had seen it debated as to whether smoking an already smoked ham would do anything, and let me tell you, this thing was AMAZING! so I can add my testimony to support the second smoke.
 
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