Ham Curing Mistake

[SmokinEdge]

Something to aspire to! Is that a self-designed smoke box or are plans available somewhere?

Self designed, kinda. It’s very straight forward simple 3x3x7’ box with a vent at the bottom ground level in front and exhaust at the top of the back wall. Propane burner for heat. I built a few other styles from masonry before building this wood box. Marianski’s book “Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design “ was a big part of my inspiration in the beginning, then a little internet searching later.

 

[CJNL]

Looking at this one ham at a time, is this what you did?

Pork: 10 pounds
Water: 0.25gal
Cure #1: 17 grams

That recipe is fine.
Your concern is in the fact that the pork was not fully submerged? It should be fine since you flipped it every day or so.

Does it pass the smell test?
You can sacrifice one ham: cut it up and look for a uniform pink color throughout.

At your suggestion I sacrificed one of the four for a forensic autopsy. I now have a series of ham steaks. When I look at the meat cross sections most are a very deep reddish pink with some a slightly lighter shade of pink, but pink nonetheless. I have a 1/4" oxidation lighter brown on the outside layer, and a little bit the same around some of the bones, but no off odors. I assumed the oxidation was normal from initial cut and the 24 hour hang post cure. Does this look like what I should expect, or are the lighter pinks a sign of significant under cure?

 

[thirdeye]

I can honestly say I've never seen the term "forensic autopsy" used in a discussion about curing a ham. That said, I don't see anything that stands out, but I've never done this kind of experiment. How thick are those ham steaks? If you treated them like cured pork chops.... they might come out looking like this. With all the surface area don't go too heavy with the smoke.

And after smoking if you get some muscle groups that are darker, no worries. The darker color is due to the different amount of myoglobin from muscle to muscle.