I'm interested in making some cottage ham for my wife - she's from western Europe where smoked/cured meats were a necessity...that, and she just loves cottage hams. I've been trying to do some research and reading to figure out the best method, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of information...so here's a couple questions that I have, if anyone would be willing to help out:
1) What is the "best" piece of pork to use? Is it the "money muscle" on the pork shoulder or a pork loin? Alternatively, can I just cut up a pork shoulder into multiple pieces and make the cottage ham from that?
2) From what I've read, most all cottage hams use a wet brine. I've seen several wet brine recipes around here - but how long should I brine the meat before smoking?
3) When brining meat, I've seen some people measure the pink salt (cure #1) based upon the weight of the meat - and other times, I've seen people put the pink salt into water in a particular ratio of pink salt-to-water. Any guidance on the best way to calculate or figure out how much pink salt I need to use for the brining process?
4) As for smoking the brined meat - to what internal temperature should I take the pork to before it's considered "done" for a ham? Should the smoking process be something similar to smoked salmon where one method is to use a step-wise temperature gradient so that you slowly increase the temperature in the smoke box over a 12-hour period or so to slowly get the internal temperature to the desired temperature?
Any help or guidance (or recipes) would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
1) What is the "best" piece of pork to use? Is it the "money muscle" on the pork shoulder or a pork loin? Alternatively, can I just cut up a pork shoulder into multiple pieces and make the cottage ham from that?
2) From what I've read, most all cottage hams use a wet brine. I've seen several wet brine recipes around here - but how long should I brine the meat before smoking?
3) When brining meat, I've seen some people measure the pink salt (cure #1) based upon the weight of the meat - and other times, I've seen people put the pink salt into water in a particular ratio of pink salt-to-water. Any guidance on the best way to calculate or figure out how much pink salt I need to use for the brining process?
4) As for smoking the brined meat - to what internal temperature should I take the pork to before it's considered "done" for a ham? Should the smoking process be something similar to smoked salmon where one method is to use a step-wise temperature gradient so that you slowly increase the temperature in the smoke box over a 12-hour period or so to slowly get the internal temperature to the desired temperature?
Any help or guidance (or recipes) would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
