Smoked fresh ham

[Roman Buffalo]

Good Morning and Merry Christmas to all! I attempted my first smoked ham from scratch this year from a pig I butchered this fall. I was super excited about the whole process. Due to some time constraints I ended up using the sausage maker brand brown sugar ham cure as it claimed around a 7 day cure time. So I followed the directions to a tee, after the cure I let it soak in water for about 16 hours to try and draw some salt out. Tested a piece and it was a little more salty than I wanted but I figured after smoking and glaze it would mellow out. Well I now have a beautifully smoked ham thats still pretty salty. Other than coating this puppy in a bag of brown sugar pineapples and cherrys are there any suggestions to try and draw some more salt out of it prior to the final cook of it tomorrow? is it possible to soak it again after its been smoked or am I pretty much stuck with masking it with sugar?

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[Brokenhandle]

This might be too late but you can try soaking it more, if you smoke it the way it is you're gonna be stuck with it. If you're gonna eat it as a holiday meal maybe with some sides it won't seem too bad. But if too salty it can still be cut up and used it lots of other dishes, just cut back or don't use any salt.

Ryan

 

[olaf]

[QUOTE="is it possible to soak it again after its been smoked or am I pretty much stuck with masking it with sugar?

[/QUOTE]
The first time I did bacon I had the same problem so I gave it a soak in water and it did take out the salt. the bacon turned out so-so but I was doing everything wrong in those days.

 

[Roman Buffalo]

I think all is well actually. I went to split it into two pieces so I could freeze one of them since we weren’t having people over anymore and sampled a piece from inside and surprisingly it was really good I think just taking too shallow of a sample slice I was getting the saltiest portion of the ham.

This curing game is a whole different learning curve it makes the smoking side seem as easy as slapping a pb&j together haha. I have a pork belly thawing out to try bacon for the first time too.

I was actually really pleased with the cure penetration on this I wasn’t expecting it to be that nice pink color on my first time around.

 

[Brokenhandle]

Glad it turned out for you! We love ham

Ryan