Curing hams

[Gene]

How do you use the brown sugar ham cure?

[Jonathon]

Gene We have a video for this in the works and it should be ready shortly. However to give you a quick breakdown on it you will need an injector, a pickling bucket (or something to hold the pickle in) a container to hold your ham in and some country brown sugar cure. You will dissolve 2 lb of country brown sugar cure in 2 gallons of cold water (we recommend you add 2 oz of California Ham Spice and 1.5 lb of sure gel but those are optional) and pump your ham until it is 20% of its green weight. Then cover your ham in a 50% solution, for example 1 lb of cure to 2 gallons of water and hold it overnight. Place it in a netting and hang in the smokehouse.

The cooking instructions are
120° for an hour without smoke
140° for two hours with smoke
150° for two hours with smoke
160° for four hours with smoke
190° until internal temperature is 160°

Then put your ham in an ice bath for about 15-20 minutes to bring the temperature down as quickly as possible. Then hold for 2 hours at room temperature before placing in a cooler.

I hope this helped and if you have any other questions let us know!

[Papa Al]

Jonathon would I need to hold the ham over night if I vacuum tumble first them pump the brine ,could it go straight to the smoker and would it need a smoke meat stablizer ?

[Jonathon]

Papa Al You should inject the Hams first and then vacuum tumble it for the best dispersion of the cure and seasoning. If you are wanting to speed the curing process you should still add a cure accelerator like Sodium Erythorbate and hold it overnight, this will give you the best color to your ham. You could inject with cure and sodium erythorbate, tumble and then go straight to the smokehouse but we would recommend holding overnight to let the cure work in the meat and “burn” it a nice pinkish color. You can add a meat stabilizer but it’s not necessary. Check out our youtube ham video for more tips at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5awR77SQmbg