My cured ham question

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dunng

Newbie
Original poster
Dec 17, 2014
6
10
Ok, so I do have a question, or 2 or 3. lol.  Anyway, I am curing a 10 lb ham, but I'm wondering if I've ruined it since I boiled the brine with the cure in it.  I just brought it up to a boil which is 203 degrees at my altitude, then cooled it.  There was nothing on the package that said to mix it in cooled brine or water.  I've since read I needed to put it in cooled brine?  Any thoughts?  Don't want to make the family sick at Christmas, and this is my first time doing a fresh ham. Any info would help me at this point. I'm smoking the ham if I feel it's ok.
 
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Let's have more info. What kind of ham? does it have a bone? how thick is it? was the 203° when the ham went in? what was the temp of the ham? What did you do with it when you dropped the ham in? I am betting that you don't have time to cure any ham between now and Christmas. You will probably have half cured ham. If so you will have to hot smoke it or hot cook it.

Happy smoken.

David
 
10 lb bone in. Cooled brine to 40 degrees before putting ham in plus I injected near bone and every 2 inches. Was in refridge at 40 degrees. Cured for 5 days. Took out last night, is in cold water till tonight. Then smoking this weekend. Heating up on Christmas
 
10 lb bone in. Cooled brine to 40 degrees before putting ham in plus I injected near bone and every 2 inches. Was in refridge at 40 degrees. Cured for 5 days. Took out last night, is in cold water till tonight. Then smoking this weekend. Heating up on Christmas
It will not be cured. It will be a little cured but a lot more like a fresh ham at 5 days you could only cure about a inch and a half without injecting.  The fact that you injected would add a little more. Without knowing how much injection and how it was done I can't say how much you are curing from the inside out. 

Lets say for the sake of argument that you injected enough to have the inside of the ham as well covered as the outside (and you don't have anything close)  That would add  another inch and a half of meat to cure in both directions from the bone so in 5 days. So the best you could hope for is to have cured a piece of meat 3" thick. 

You will have a safe piece of meat to cook. But you won't have a fully cured ham.

Happy smoken.

David
 
Thanks so much. I feel better about smoking it. I've read I need to wet cure 1 day for every 2 lbs. Is that wrong?
 
Thanks so much. I feel better about smoking it. I've read I need to wet cure 1 day for every 2 lbs. Is that wrong?
You measure the amount of cure by the pounds of meat. forget LBS after that! You go by inches. Measure the thickest part. Then you divide by 2 because the cure is coming from both sides. Cure will penetrate 1/4" per day. If you inject that will change it some. I won't even go into that.(do you research). Then you add 2 days for any error. Yes you can go a lot longer. I have had bacon in cure for a month with no worries for a piece of meat that I could have smoked in  6 days.

Please take some time to research curing. The amount and time will make a lot of difference between safe and sorry

Happy smoken.

David
 
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