Pork Butt and my "ham injection"... Pork butt is my new go-to ham... seriously good....

[daveomak]

This is a WINNER !!!!

Yep, I used my go-to ham injection... I do not think this butt was ever frozen... Makes a BIG difference when injection curing.. The difference is definitely noticeable... In picnics also....
typical 10% injection... 14 days in the refer being cured... Light cold water rinse... In the smoker at 100F for about 45 minutes to dry the outside and form a pellicle.. Then a full tray of my 3 dust mix... Twice... each tray smoked for 6 hours... exhaust CLOSED to about 5% open.. Then upped the heat to 145F.. When the internal temp was about 128F, I lowered the heat to 135F... The IT stalled at about 132F so I upped the heat to ~140F.... The internal temp came up to 133-134F.... I held it there for about 4 hours.... (I'm following poultry pasteurizing times + an hour or more, just to insure salmonella death.. I'm too old to get sick) Then pulled it and sliced into it to see how it turned out... Looked pretty good.... The flavor was better than any picnic I've done... I attribute that to all the fat in a butt... Fat is definitely flavor... Moist and tender.... almost fall apart tender...

The reason I tried this butt... I bought a small hunk of ham at the store... I think it was a chunk from a leg... About 5#'s... It was dry and tough... I can make better ham drunk and with my eyes closed...
All they had in the cooler was a butt.... So, now you know...

 

[DougE]

Man, that looks amazing, Dave. Curing a butt into ham is on my short list of things I want to do.

 

[pineywoods]

It looks outstanding nice job

 

[SmokinEdge]

Well Dave, you pulled that off like a boss. Nice work. I actually prefer the picnic flavor and lower fat for ham, but I do use your injection on butts, sands the cure #1, and that my friend is dynamite pulled pork.
Again nice work, like.

 

[indaswamp]

YUM! That looks great Dave. My friend that I got the Cajun ham spice rub from....all he uses is butts. I wanna do just the coppa like this one day.

 

[pc farmer]

Looks great. What makes you think it was never frozen?

 

[yankee2bbq]

Looks really good! I’ll take a couple slices please!

 

[thirdeye]

Looks good. Since trying your technique on shoulder picnics, butts and even loins.... I have not changed one single thing, it works that well.

Going forward I'm playing with a combination corning method using your injection technique for the first 24 hours (which has AmesPhos), then moving the beef or pork to a bucket with a covering brine for 14 days.

 

[Fueling Around]

You had my attention at "Moist and tender..."

I haven't tried your injection technique, but the pasteurization I learned from you has stepped up my loin cures.

Very deserved ride on the carousel.

 

[Sven Svensson]

That’s a work of art! I love the color on it. That brings me to this question. I’ve made a lot of hams over the years and none of them have had a smoke ring. Any idea why they don’t develop a ring? I have a feeling indaswamp will know the answer.

 

[GATOR240]

That is a great looking ham, and I'm sure, great tasting ham! Nicely done. I'm going to have to give this a shot!!

 

[indaswamp]

That’s a work of art! I love the color on it. That brings me to this question. I’ve made a lot of hams over the years and none of them have had a smoke ring. Any idea why they don’t develop a ring? I have a feeling indaswamp will know the answer.

The smoke ring occurs from the NO2 and CO2 gas created from the fire combustion. These gases diffuse into the meat in the smoke chamber and react with the myoglobin in uncured meat to form the red appearance. If you cure the meat, you are adding Nitrate and/or nitrite which will convert to NO2 gas and bind with the myoglobin in the meat.
In short-the myoglobin in cured meat has already converted to Nitrosomyoglobin so smoking will not affect the meat.

 

[motocrash]

Breakfast is gonna be good tomorrow. Some biscuits...mmm

 

[Sowsage]

Good lord that looks good!..

 

[SmokinEdge]

The smoke ring occurs from the NO2 and CO2 gas created from the fire combustion. These gases diffuse into the meat in the smoke chamber and react with the myoglobin in uncured meat to form the red appearance. If you cure the meat, you are adding Nitrate and/or nitrite which will convert to NO2 gas and bind with the myoglobin in the meat.
In short-the myoglobin in cured meat has already converted to Nitrosomyoglobin so smoking will not affect the meat.

There it is. The lesson for the day. Spot on Inda, you nailed it. Most people don’t know about the CO2.
To add, cured meat doesnt develop more of a smoke ring specifically because the Nitrosomyglobin is already established. This is why in bbq competition, they don’t judge for smoke ring. To easy to just add nitrite to the rub and create a beautiful smoke ring.

 

[indaswamp]

I must confess.....
I did not know about the CO2 and CO gas until I learned it here from chef jimmyj (R.I.P.). I knew it was created by combustion, just not that it had the same coloring effect on the meat like NO2.

 

[pushok2018]

Outstanding! Beautiful color... I can see from the pick how moist it is.... Bookmarked and will try to smoke the same this month....
Dave, if you don't mind - what brine recipe did you use?

 

[Sven Svensson]

I knew you’d know the answer indaswamp and I had no idea about the competition cheat SmokinEdge . So, in a sense, ham is just one big giant overgrown smoke ring?

 

[SmokinEdge]

I must confess.....
I did not know about the CO2 and CO gas until I learned it here from chef jimmyj (R.I.P.). I knew it was created by combustion, just not that it had the same coloring effect on the meat like NO2.

I’d have to go dig in my notes, but this is why different woods give deeper color to meat than others. Cherry and pecan stand out as more heavy in NO And CO. The more the tree was fertilized, or the more rich in nitrogen the ground was where the tree grew, the more pink ring effect From it. Fruit wood from an orchard is always better than fruitwood just on the property where it may not get fertilizer. Kind of the same as vegetables being high in nitrate, which is what the wood can be high in, but converts to NO through heat in the burning process.

 

[SmokinEdge]

I knew you’d know the answer indaswamp and I had no idea about the competition cheat SmokinEdge . So, in a sense, ham is just one big giant overgrown smoke ring?

Correct, but more of a giant controlled smoke ring. We fix the iron molecules in myoglobin so they don’t turn grey with temperature. The NO gas does this once converted from NaNo2 (nitrite) it’s the nitric oxide release from nitrite that fixes the myoglobin color. It is believed the just before nitric oxide is formed, nitrous acid is formed and this is what neutralizes botulism, then it continues into nitric oxide.