Maple Cured and Smoked Picnic Ham
This is my first attempt at a recipe post on SMF and I thought I’d share the picnic ham I made for Christmas Eve dinner. Got a lot of good ham ideas from you SMF vets so thanks for that.
It’s not the first ham I have ever made but it’s the first ham I’ve cured and smoked for half a century, literally. My family owned a hunting/fishing lodge in northern Canada when I was a kid and at age 12 my Dad put me in charge of the meat and smokehouses all summer, making bacon and hams for the lodge kitchen, jerky for the clients, and smoking fish for the guests. Sounds like a lot for a kid but I loved "helping" him ever since I was a toddler and there was still lots of time to canoe, fish and explore between cutting wood and stoking the fires. I’ve always wanted to revisit my “smoking roots” but honestly don’t remember much about the recipes my Dad taught me. I decided to start with an unenhanced picnic shoulder cut since we can buy them on sale for a song here and if I screwed it up it was no great loss.
I trimmed the picnic, removing the skin for oven cracklins, and trimmed the fat layer to about 1/4" thick and cross hatched it. Picnic was 3200 g after trimming. My brine water volume was about 75% of the ham weight (2500 mL) for a total brine + ham weight of 5700 g which I used to calculate salt, sugar and Cure #1 amounts. I used a 3% equilibrium salt concentration (5700 g x 0.03 = 171 g salt) which equals 6.8% salt in the brine alone and 2% equilibrium maple sugar concentration (114 g) or 4.5% sugar in the brine alone. I boiled the salt and sugar in 1000 mL of the brine water to dissolve it and added bay leaves and cracked coriander seeds, peppercorns, juniper berries, allspice and mustard seed to steep and cool to room temperature. Strained and added it to the rest of the brine and chilled it overnight.
Next day I used a target sodium nitrite level of 150ppm and used Dr. Bondar's curing calculator to estimate the amount of Cure #1 (13.7 g) and dissolved it in the brine. Then I measured out enough brine to come to 20% of the ham weight (640 mL) for a 20% pump rate. I inject as much as I could into the ham (probably only about 15% pump), concentrating particularly around the bones and under the fat layer. Poured remaining brine over ham in brining bag and let it cure in the fridge for 14 days, flipping every couple days.
After curing I dried it with paper towels and let it dry on a rack in the fridge for 48 hours to form a pellicle and allow the cure to equilibrate. Then I smoked it at 180F with a mix of maple and hickory pellets until the internal temperature reached 145F. Took about 14 hours in my MES30 with a mailbox mod and A-maze-n pellet tray (thanks SMF).
I let it cool in the smoker overnight (outside air temp was fridge temperature), then wrapped it and let it rest in the fridge for 4 days until Christmas Eve. Reheated in the oven at 325F, glazing with a mustard/maple syrup/butter glaze for the last hour.
Cured and ready for the smoker.
Smoked and ready for resting in the fridge.
First plate of carved ham heading for the table.
Carved it up for dinner and it was moist and cured through. Was it good? Well, the 6 adults said it was delicious and left me only enough on the bone for ham soup and a small sandwich. Just the right amount of smoke and saltiness and a subtle maple sweetness. Got another picnic in the freezer and might try some phosphates in the injection next time to see if they add anything. It was a fun project and I'm looking forward to trying a rear ham cut for Easter. Maybe I'll get more than one sandwich out of it.
This is my first attempt at a recipe post on SMF and I thought I’d share the picnic ham I made for Christmas Eve dinner. Got a lot of good ham ideas from you SMF vets so thanks for that.
It’s not the first ham I have ever made but it’s the first ham I’ve cured and smoked for half a century, literally. My family owned a hunting/fishing lodge in northern Canada when I was a kid and at age 12 my Dad put me in charge of the meat and smokehouses all summer, making bacon and hams for the lodge kitchen, jerky for the clients, and smoking fish for the guests. Sounds like a lot for a kid but I loved "helping" him ever since I was a toddler and there was still lots of time to canoe, fish and explore between cutting wood and stoking the fires. I’ve always wanted to revisit my “smoking roots” but honestly don’t remember much about the recipes my Dad taught me. I decided to start with an unenhanced picnic shoulder cut since we can buy them on sale for a song here and if I screwed it up it was no great loss.
I trimmed the picnic, removing the skin for oven cracklins, and trimmed the fat layer to about 1/4" thick and cross hatched it. Picnic was 3200 g after trimming. My brine water volume was about 75% of the ham weight (2500 mL) for a total brine + ham weight of 5700 g which I used to calculate salt, sugar and Cure #1 amounts. I used a 3% equilibrium salt concentration (5700 g x 0.03 = 171 g salt) which equals 6.8% salt in the brine alone and 2% equilibrium maple sugar concentration (114 g) or 4.5% sugar in the brine alone. I boiled the salt and sugar in 1000 mL of the brine water to dissolve it and added bay leaves and cracked coriander seeds, peppercorns, juniper berries, allspice and mustard seed to steep and cool to room temperature. Strained and added it to the rest of the brine and chilled it overnight.
Next day I used a target sodium nitrite level of 150ppm and used Dr. Bondar's curing calculator to estimate the amount of Cure #1 (13.7 g) and dissolved it in the brine. Then I measured out enough brine to come to 20% of the ham weight (640 mL) for a 20% pump rate. I inject as much as I could into the ham (probably only about 15% pump), concentrating particularly around the bones and under the fat layer. Poured remaining brine over ham in brining bag and let it cure in the fridge for 14 days, flipping every couple days.
After curing I dried it with paper towels and let it dry on a rack in the fridge for 48 hours to form a pellicle and allow the cure to equilibrate. Then I smoked it at 180F with a mix of maple and hickory pellets until the internal temperature reached 145F. Took about 14 hours in my MES30 with a mailbox mod and A-maze-n pellet tray (thanks SMF).
I let it cool in the smoker overnight (outside air temp was fridge temperature), then wrapped it and let it rest in the fridge for 4 days until Christmas Eve. Reheated in the oven at 325F, glazing with a mustard/maple syrup/butter glaze for the last hour.
Cured and ready for the smoker.
Smoked and ready for resting in the fridge.
First plate of carved ham heading for the table.
Carved it up for dinner and it was moist and cured through. Was it good? Well, the 6 adults said it was delicious and left me only enough on the bone for ham soup and a small sandwich. Just the right amount of smoke and saltiness and a subtle maple sweetness. Got another picnic in the freezer and might try some phosphates in the injection next time to see if they add anything. It was a fun project and I'm looking forward to trying a rear ham cut for Easter. Maybe I'll get more than one sandwich out of it.
