Cured and Smoked Deer Ham

I totally had that all broken up into paragraphs before posting. What happened?

These two hams weighed about 7 and a half pounds a piece. So most websites (including Pops' thread) recommend brining 1.5 days per pound of meat for wet curing. I plan on keeping these in the cure in the fridge for abound 10 days. I rotate them every couple of days so there are no pressure points where cure isn't reaching.

I should also note that I made an effort to remove the slimy fat film that covers the meat. With a young animal you can simply pull the film away. I've been told by some folks who are experienced deer butchers that removing that film becomes much more difficult as the animal gets older.
 

I haven't heard that marrow in the brine is bad with the exception of CWD affected animals. Is it something to be avoided for other reasons?

Scarbelly said:

You should be able to go back and edit it 

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Hmm, the pc I was working on must have had an older version of explorer that wasn't alowing me to do that. Thanks you, sir.

DiggingDogFarm said:

Looks like you're off to a great start.
We used to make venison 'prosciutto' years ago, it's assume stuff!
~Martin

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Do you have a link to a recipe/process for that? It sounds interesting.

The hams went into the curing solution on 10/20 and I removed them on 11/03. This is a little longer than I intended but my work schedule got a little hectic so the hams had to wait. I then leached them by putting them back into the fridge submerged in clear cold water for two days to remove some of the saltiness. On 11/5 I removed the hams from the water and dried them off. I then attempted to remove more of the thin slimy fat coating and some of the thicker fat layer that was previously very difficult to remove. Both came off much easier after being cured.

I also inspected the hams to ensure that they did not sour. A fry test can be conducted if you are worried by slicing off a little piece and frying it up. You should really be able to tell by smell and sight if something is wrong though.

Once the drying and trimming were completed, I wrapped one of the hams up and put it in the freezer for a later date, maybe Christmas.

I then applied a rub to the other ham while it rested covered to come up to room temperature.

I decided that I would make a rub specifically for venison. Since venison resembles beef in so many ways I decide to use something more black pepper/garlic based instead of paprika/brown sugar based. Here is the recipe for the rub. I adapted it from this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/...pork-with-citrus-and-garlic-recipe/index.html  which is for pork but it has a bunch of citrus stuff that I did not use. The part I selected from it is excellent for steak. So maybe I didn't need to source it and I could have called it my own without all of the explanation.

I think it really made a big difference in the flavor.

• 10 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons fresh oregano
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 4 bay leaves
• Black Pepper to your preference

Blend these up in a food processor and then apply liberally to the ham. This is where your trimming of the fat comes into play. You need the rub to get to the meat. The more you have exposed the more flavor from the rub and the smoke you will get. Trim the fat down the long porting of the ham near the "Knee" area to expose the separation in the major muscles. Pack this area with left over rub.


I then made a basket weave bacon cap using 9 or 10 pieces of thickly sliced bacon woven together. I placed this over the larges part of the ham to protect it from heat flare ups and to add some fat to the ham. It also imparts a nice flavor.


I then threw this guy into my stick burner with a couple pieces of smoldering apple wood at 225 F for about three hours.



After three hours the internal temp was about 118 F. I didn't want to go overboard with the smoke so I pulled it off and finished it in a roasting pan in the oven.



After tenting it with aluminum foil I put it in there at 225 F until the internal temp reached 140 F. I then pulled the ham out. Deer is very lean and easily over cooked and dried out. I then and placed some towels over it to let it rest for about an hour to an hour and a half. I then carved it and discarded the glands and other extraneous connecting tissue. I was surprised at how much meat I got off this thing.




This ham really turned out. Absolutely no gamey flavor. Super Juicy. Just the right amount of smoke for me and the rub just went so well with the venison. The meat had the pink flavor of a ham and at 140 F it was done to just the right texture all the way through. I was really surprised by how well this came out. The process is not super complicated especially because it must be broken up over a couple of weeks. This is an excellent way to celebrate the holidays and/or the beginning of another successful hunting season!

Pit 4 Brains said:

Well I've been told that crosscutting the bones of wild game increases the gamey-ness of the meat. I think this would be more noticeable in steaks and the like, I certainly don't know for sure if it would impart a flavor into the brine and thus into the meat..

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 I had to cut more of the bone away to fit one of the hams into the bucket I use to cure them. Even with a fresh cut I did not visually detect, after two weeks, any leaking of the marrow into the cure. In the end this ham was not gamey at all. Which could be because it was only a one year old buck, because it was harvested near a soy bean and corn farm, because of the cure, because of the leaching process, because of the slow cooking, or a combination of all of those possibilities. So I can not definitely say cross cutting the bone had no effect, but, I couldn't tell if it did.