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skent
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Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
06/08/07 10:38 AM
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I've moved over from the TBN board for a more home related question. I hope someone can help.
For decades, I've been curing hams using the salt rub method with great success. It's the same method my grandfather has used since the 1920's.
We usually butcher around Christmas, cure the Hams the day after slaughter, and start the smoking process the first week of Feb. I use green hickory and wild cherry wood and try to get a total of 40 or 50 hours of smoke on the hams. The cure I have been using is salt, pepper and brown sugar with a dry rub method. This results is a Ham very similar to Smithfield Hams. When it's time to enjoy the ham, I clean off all the salt cure, remove the skin and excess fat, slice the ham into two equal size pieces, and soak in cold water (inside the refrigerator) for 3 days, changing the water daily. (This is to remove the salt from the meat.) The resulting meat still has a high salt content, and while I (and most of my older relatives) enjoy 'Country Cured' Hams, my wife and children do not care for the salty taste. In the past, i've tried soaking the meat longer (to try to reduce the salt content), but it's still too salty.
What I'm looking for, is a cure that will yield a ham similar to delly style baked ham, or a pit ham flavor. I'm thinking of trying a brine method this year, but was wondering if anyone out there has a method.
There are lots of brine methods on line, but I'd like to know if anyone has actually tried one.
Thanks.
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egon
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: skent]
06/08/07 04:09 PM
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In my youth we smoked hams and bacon that were salt cured and would keep in a cool dry place.
Now I'm guessing the type of ham you are looking for will be smoked but minus the salt treatment or a greatly reduced salt treatment. They will not keep unless frozen.
Now my knowledge borders on negative value but I'd suggest you try your original recipe but with much less salt. It may take a few runs before you come up with a salt ratio that will make your family happy. 
Keep on Smoking!
Egon
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JazzDad
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: skent]
06/08/07 04:16 PM
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Grandma used to cook the salt out of her hams. I don't know that method, and she's gone now or I could ask. Perhaps you can pursue this train of thought?
All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.-Michael Carr
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Bird
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: JazzDad]
06/08/07 07:04 PM
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I think I recall some instructions on some "Virginia Hams" that said to boil them to get the salt out before finishing preparing them. We actually had some friends in Dallas who were from Virginia and when they went back on vacation, they brought back "Virginia" hams and simply sliced and heated them and, in my opinion, they were so salty as to almost be inedible. 
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Pat
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: skent]
06/10/07 01:40 PM
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skent, Morton (the Morton salrt people) used to make a SUGAR CURE for hams. It came is a box like a giant box of pancake flour. The last time I saw it was in about 1959 as a young lad helping the folks.
This will take you to a Minnesota University site that gives a sugar cure procedure (salt is used too.)
I think you can reduce the salt if you use nitrite but you need to google and see what is out there.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/DJ0972.html
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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Goldchaser
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Pat]
10/27/07 10:56 AM
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Just reading this thread, but am interested because we are butchering a hog this weekend. He is a little over 2 hundred pounds on the hoof. So I do have several questions. I have plenty of equipment, meat band saw, grinder, complete butcher set of knives, etc. I have done deer in the past and other such critters and assisted on several hogs when I was alot younger and living on my grandparents farm.
My questions are these. Scald or skin? I would like to try my own ham but understand that its almost a necessity that the skin be on it when curing. But we have no way of scalding this size of hog at this time. Maybe for the next one. Anyone have any suggestions? Also plan on curing bacon as well. Most of the rest of the hog except for the tenderloins and some steaks and chops we figure on grinding. Which keeps longer in the freezer, fresh ground or seasoned? I presume fresh. Anyway, if anyone has some suggestions would appreciate it.
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Bird
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Goldchaser]
10/27/07 11:53 AM
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It's been many years since I was a kid and we raised and butchered our own hogs. My grandfather did things the old fashioned way; scalded them in a barrel or vat over a wood fire, then scraped them. Of course you need the container for the water, a way to heat it, and a way to lift the hog, lower it into the scalding water and back out. And as you said, as far as I know, you need the skin on to cure hams. Bacon was cured with the skin on, too, in the old days. My dad, on the other hand, preferred to just skin them and that worked just fine. Of course if you've never skinned a hog, you're in for a surprise. When skinning most animals, whether cattle, deer, squirrels, rabbits, etc., you cut some of the skin loose and you peel or pull it loose; pretty easy work. With hogs, the skin is securely attached to that layer of fat and you have to cut every inch of the way. Good luck.
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Goldchaser
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Bird]
10/27/07 12:52 PM
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My grandparents usually scalded their hogs but on one that I helped with they did skin it. And I remember almost each cut I made in the dang thing. A very sharp knife and a knife sharpner, wetstone, whatever to keep that knife sharp because it will get dull all too soon. I seem to remember it took me most of an hour, maybe longer to skin that hog. My grandfather kept begging off helping since the rheumatiz in his hands was pestering him or so he said. He just sat there chuckling the whole time and smokin his pipe. Time I got done I think I smelled and looked worse than the hog.
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Pat
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Bird]
10/27/07 12:53 PM
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My observation of others doing hogs makes me say I will buy my pork from the store. I have known several folks who butchered exactly ONE hog and the comments have always been, NEVER AGAIN!
Both sides of my family came from small family farms and butchered their own pork. Both used 55 gal steel drums over wood fires to scald the carcass before scraping it so that limited the size they could handle. It is quite an operation and not one that I would choose if there were viable alternatives.
I do or have done fish, frogs, turtles, rabbits, squirrels, and such but I don't do my own beef and am even less interested in doing my own pork.
I do recall my dad bringing home a fresh ham one time and we used Morton brand sugar cure on it to good effect. There is still salt in the sugar cure but not as much. If after the cured ham is sliced and before you do whatever it is you are going to do with it you put it in a pan of water and bring it to a boil briefly first, you will remove a lot of the salt. You can soak it in water over night in the fridge and then bring it to a boil before doing whatever you want to do with it and it reduces the salt content considerably. It doesn't spoil the flavor. You can boil and then fry and except for less salty taste the results are virtually indistinguishable.
If you cut back the salt in the curing process too much you will not get a good safe cure. I think it is better to put it in for food storage safety and take a lot of it back out with soaking/boiling rather than run risks by cutting back on the salt too much in the curing process. There are alternative chemicals besides salt but I like them even less than salt.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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GregMVT
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Pat]
10/30/07 05:31 AM
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We will be slaughtering 5 pigs in about 3 weeks. There are a couple of guys in the area that will come in, put down the pig, gut/skin/and halve it. The one we are using is charging us $30 per pig. He might be giving us a volume discount since I'd heard that it would probably cost about $40 each. I am planning on curing/smoking the hams and bacon from at least 3 of them. I had found a brine cure online, I'll have to look for the link, that I adjusted to use maple syrup with instead of sugar. I tried it on a picnic shoulder to see how it would come out. I had it in the smokehouse for 12 hours over 2 days, put it in the frdige overnight, and it came out really good and not to salty.
I had read somewheres, think it was "Story's Guide to Raising Pigs" that seasoned sausage will not last as long in the freezer.
Greg
Kioti CK30
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Pat
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: GregMVT]
10/30/07 06:57 AM
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Most pork products don't last too long around me whether in the freezer, meat drawer, or wherever so long as I can find them.
$30 seems like a bargain to me if they do a good job!
Pat 
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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Bird
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Pat]
10/30/07 07:53 AM
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In reply to:
$30 seems like a bargain to me if they do a good job!
That's a fact. I sure wouldn't want to tackle that job for $30. 
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Goldchaser
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: Bird]
10/30/07 08:29 AM
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In reply to:
That's a fact. I sure wouldn't want to tackle that job for $30.
Neither would I, I get to do it for nothing. <sigh> Didnt do my hog this weekend as planned. My son forgot to move it to a seperate pen and take it off feed the day before. (Maybe on purpose?)
So now its rescheduled for next weekend. Actually I think it will be better since it will be colder then. The only thing I am dreading is skinning the doggone thing. Am looking forward to some fresh pork though. Am going to try to cure one ham at least and of course the bacon. Our guesthouse will be unheated the next month for the most part so I figure that will work perfect for an area to cure them.
Someone mentioned Storeys Guide to raising pigs. Its not a bad read. I picked it up a few years ago when we decided to start raising our own hogs again. Its a good book for someone who hasnt ever raised hogs on a small scale and for those whom its been a looooonnnnggg time since raising any.  Not what I would call the definative guide, but it does have a fair amount of usefull info in an easy to understand format.
Dennis
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GregMVT
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: GregMVT]
11/13/07 05:12 AM
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Here's the link I'd mentioned earlier Brining pork We couldn't taste the salt when we did the picnic shoulder. This Sunday is the big day for the pigs. I talked to the guy doing it last week. He said it should take about 2 hours to do all 5 of them. I'm not sure how he can do it but for the price it'll be good even if it takes longer! I'm planning on taping them this Saturday to get an idea of their live weight.
Greg
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greggh
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: skent]
06/05/08 12:56 PM
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I know that it has been some time since any response to the post, but I am new and I saw the post which interested me.
When I was a kid and butchered our own pigs. My grandad would get the Morton's sugar cure and put the ham in a box covered up when the curing sugar (which is more like salt than sugar). He would leave it there for a long time, unfortunately I don't remember how long, but it seemed like a couple of weeks. Then he would hang it in the smoke house. After smoking he would then wrap the ham in a burlap sack and leave hanging in the smoke house until he felt that all of the moisture had drained from the meat. There were always puddles of what looked like fat on the floor under the hanging meat. I remember that I enjoyed the taste of the meat but I don't remember if it was salty or not. I do remember that there was no need to refrigerate the meat once it was cured, One could just slice off a piece and eat it without cooking. I didn't do that but my dad did it several times.
Sorry for the long post, but it just brought back good memories of my childhood. 
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egon
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: greggh]
06/05/08 01:35 PM
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Sounds much like our home cured bacon on the farm. But we did use salt and there was no need to refrigerate the bacon.
Egon
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eccentricfarmer
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Re: Ham Cure Method(one less salty)
[re: egon]
10/04/08 03:04 PM
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Just wanted to revive this for a bit because it sounded so interesting. My experience was with 2 pot belly males (intact) that got pretty disruptive and the decision was made for them to 'disappear'. I did the 1/2 the shooting and all of the gutting and cutting. Did not know much then (sometimes less now) but managed to get some meat off. Was a little wild tasting but not bad. No smoking or anything just eating.
Now get it from the farm (which delivers to the butcher). About $180 for the pig and depending what you want, about $200 for processing. That stuff is just the best ever had!! Waay better than something out of a grocery (box) store and does not need special considerations so it can look edible in the meat counter. Why people are not DEMANDING better and more local food is beyond me. Lamb shipped from New Zealand and Australia is not the same as something picked up from to back yard or slightly further. Nothing against them, but with all the talk of carbon footprint and such it seems like that would be lots friendlier!!
Just my rant.
No fun, change the rules!!!
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