A Couple of Old School Picnic Hams

TentHunter

Moderator
This post features my friend, Jason, who wanted to learn how to cure & smoke a ham. It's not done on a pellet smoker because I wanted him to learn how to do this old-school first. Next time we can do this on a pellet grill.

A local grocery store had fresh picnic shoulders on sale for $1.19/lb and they were huge; between 9 - 10 pounds. PERFECT! So we picked up everything needed (which isn't much): The brine ingredients (Cure #1, Pickling Salt & Brown sugar), an injector, & a food-safe tub.
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We started by trimming & removing the skin.
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Inject, then into the brine for a few days in the fridge.
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It's good to learn this old school method, so lets pull out the old Weber Kettle.
Cold-smoked for about an hour or so using about 8 briquettes & a chunk of hickory Note: a foil packet or two full of pellets works equally well - It's what I use most often even for old school stuff. Jason bought some hickory chunks so we used them.
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We added more charcoal & hickory chunks as needed to maintain a temp range of 225°-250°.

About 4 hours into the cook. Internal temp is about 120°. Time to rotate.
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Done at an I.T. of 150° (about 5 1/2 hours). Time to pull & let cool down.
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What, are you kidding? You bet we sliced into mine for a sample. Hey, You gotta have quality control! ;)
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After cooling we wrapped them in some plastic wrap to rest for a couple days before roasting.

Mine will be going on the MAK to roast here very soon, and Jason said he'd send me some final pics of his after he roasts & glazes it, so stay tuned...
 
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TentHunter

Moderator
Thanks for reminding me scooter...

Here is Jason's ham after being roasted. He hit it with a glaze of orange juice & brown sugar. His whole family absolutely loved it!
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Kite

New member
That looks like a lot of fun TH. Kind of makes me sad.. Jan picked up a precooked spiral sliced ham yesterday for some Chicken Cordon Bleu for today. We got into it last night for some ham and cheese sammies - just not the same as the ham we smoked for Christmas and your fresh cooked ham you have here. "Precooked" is DEFINITELY NOT the way to go.
 
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