Spiral Ham Disappointment

[teewinot]

I did a spiral ham, Easter on my GOSM and though the ham was OK, due to my expectations on what I had read in the forum, I was disappointed in the result. I used the Maple Bourbon recipe as found in another thread and thought it was too spicy for the delicate flavor of a spiral ham and also thought the added smokiness overpowered the original hickory smoked flavor. This is just my opinion of course and some folks may find the same flavors an improvement over the original. The Maple Bourbon Recipe was also too salty for my taste.  If I ever used it again, I would cut back on the salt.  

 

[rbranstner]

How hard/long did you smoke the ham for? Also were you getting nice thin blue smoke or thick white smoke? What kind of wood did you use? I usually use a light wood like apple or cherry for smoking my hams and I don't apply smoke for more then a few hours as I don't want it to be to smokey. Everyone has their own taste and way of doing thing and experimentation is the key to success. Like you said next time tweak the recipe to your liking.

 

[redneck69]

i like to use 

1/2 stick butter (melted)

2 cups light brown sugar

1 cup maple syrup

mix items together and drizzle over the sprial ham thats been placed in a disposable tin cooking tray, i also use wooden skewers thru the meat to help hold it together.  baste once an hour and use a very light smoke. the spiral ham tends to absorb smoke real easy. since they are pre-cooked i tend to take mine to 155-160. you could go a bit lower if you perfer.

 

[SmokinAl]

The one thing about smoking is you get to modify any recipe to your tastes. After a few hams you will have the perfect recipe for your family.

 

[teewinot]

I did have a good thin blue smoke and only left it on about 2 hours, then took it off and wrapped it in clingwrap and aluminum foil and put in the cooler until lunch. I used Hickory, and next time I think I would use pecan or apple or cherry. As I said it wasn't bad, just a little overpowering on the smoke and spice end. There were no complaints, but for my own tastes, I could tell what I should have done a little different. Just posting for the benefit of others looking for doing a pre-cooked spiral ham. I did use the skewers to hold it together and that is a good idea. I also smoked it in a small pan spiral cut side down which did keep the first few cuts from drying out.