Ham Curring Question?

[lintonskennel]

Hey guys its been awhile since I have asked a question on here. I actually forgot my last login and password so I had to make a new account. My question is that Im trying to cure 2 hams to slice and make ham steaks out of. I used a recipe off of YouTube that I thought would work. it was
2 cups Brown sugar
1 1/2 cups Kosher Salt
8 tsp Pink Salt
Half Cup of Pickling Spice
in a gallon of boiling water then injected it into the hams then poured the ramaining in the bucket with it. They were bigger hams off a hogs that we raise on our farm. My question is how long should I let them brine. The guy I watched do it said his was in for a week. I have seen so many different time frames its kinda overwhelming. what are your guys thoughts. thank you

 

[thirdeye]

We need to know the weight of the hams. The formula is meat weight + water weight to arrive at the total weight. Then your salt, sugar, Cure #1, is based on that. Aromatics like pickling spice are up to you.

 

[smokerjim]

Also wouldn't add cure then boil, let your brine cool down then add cure.

 

[lintonskennel]

We need to know the weight of the hams. The formula is meat weight + water weight to arrive at the total weight. Then your salt, sugar, Cure #1, is based on that. Aromatics like pickling spice are up to you.

I did not weigh the hams before putting them in the brine. I could weigh the buckets with the hams in them and the brine and have a ruff estimate if that would work. With the gallon of brine made up I only poured maybe 4-6 cups of water in with it to fill everything up and be over the meat

 

[thirdeye]

I did not weigh the hams before putting them in the brine. I could weigh the buckets with the hams in them and the brine and have a ruff estimate if that would work. With the gallon of brine made up I only poured maybe 4-6 cups of water in with it to fill everything up and be over the meat

That would be better than taking a wild guess. Also, what brand of kosher salt did you use?

 

[SmokinEdge]

Hey guys its been awhile since I have asked a question on here. I actually forgot my last login and password so I had to make a new account. My question is that Im trying to cure 2 hams to slice and make ham steaks out of. I used a recipe off of YouTube that I thought would work. it was
2 cups Brown sugar
1 1/2 cups Kosher Salt
8 tsp Pink Salt
Half Cup of Pickling Spice
in a gallon of boiling water then injected it into the hams then poured the ramaining in the bucket with it. They were bigger hams off a hogs that we raise on our farm. My question is how long should I let them brine. The guy I watched do it said his was in for a week. I have seen so many different time frames its kinda overwhelming. what are your guys thoughts. thank you

I don’t like random brines with random meat weights. Everything thing is measured in spoons, cups and buckets, way to crude of measure for me but that said:

This can be discussed many different ways but here are the nuts and bolts of your situation to the best of my ability to decipher your measurement.

1) The brine looks to be 10% salt content

2) The cure #1 PPM looks to be around 925ppm

Now, you said you injected, question is how much in a percentage to meat weight? This number matters. So let’s just suppose that you injected 10% brine to meat weight ( this would be maximum and almost impossible with a syringe) but let’s just say that is the case. We don’t know the meat weight but it doesn’t matter in this scenario of 10% to meat weight, we are assuming maximum.

1) You would have injected 1% salt to the meat weight.

2) You would have injected 92.5ppm nitrite to the meat (200ppm are maximum)

So really now with that brine as a cover brine after injection we have to guess the continued uptake of salt and nitrite. Sugar takes much longer to diffuse into meat than does salt, which is counterproductive with this brine. I personally would not soak in the brine in this scenario more than a week, and most likely wouldn’t cover it at all opting to inject and then zip bag it and let it cure for 10-14 days.

 

[thirdeye]

The brine looks to be 10% salt content. You would have injected 1% salt to the meat weight.

1-cup of Diamond Crystal Kosher is 180g, and Morton Kosher is 248g... so when L lintonskennel tells us the brand of salt, maybe that will help support your calculations. I agree that 10% uptake is really hard to accomplish.

 

[SmokinEdge]

1-cup of Diamond Crystal Kosher is 180g, and Morton Kosher is 248g... so when L lintonskennel tells us the brand of salt, maybe that will help support your calculations. I agree that 10% uptake is really hard to accomplish.

I agree, it’s really all a guess at this point, but maybe we can get in the neighborhood on this one and get him lined out for future projects.

 

[thirdeye]

I agree, it’s really all a guess at this point, but maybe we can get in the neighborhood on this one and get him lined out for future projects.

And although I think the brine strength is going to come in stronger than I use.... there is an upper limit of 3.8 ounces of Cure #1 per gallon of water.

 

[SmokinEdge]

And although I think the brine strength is going to come in stronger than I use.... there is an upper limit of 3.8 ounces of Cure #1 per gallon of water.

Correct on cure #1 also. Upper limit at 3.8 Oz equals about 1900ppm in brine. This is recommended by the USDA as a injection only brine because 10% pump would be 190ppm but no cover in the pickle only injection.

 

[lintonskennel]

We need to know the weight of the hams. The formula is meat weight + water weight to arrive at the total weight. Then your salt, sugar, Cure #1, is based on that. Aromatics like pickling spice are up to you.

Ok so I went out and set my buckets on the scale with the ham and brine in them. To my best guess the hams should weight around 33 pounds for the first one. the second one should be ruffly 32 pounds.I put them in the brine last Sunday evening 11/12/2023. thanks for the help guys

 

[SmokinEdge]

Ok so I went out and set my buckets on the scale with the ham and brine in them. To my best guess the hams should weight around 33 pounds for the first one. the second one should be ruffly 32 pounds.I put them in the brine last Sunday evening 11/12/2023. thanks for the help guys

That’s the estimated weight of the meat? Or the total of meat, bucket and brine?

 

[lintonskennel]

1-cup of Diamond Crystal Kosher is 180g, and Morton Kosher is 248g... so when L lintonskennel tells us the brand of salt, maybe that will help support your calculations. I agree that 10% uptake is really hard to accomplish.

I used Morton Korser Salt

 

[lintonskennel]

That’s the estimated weight of the meat? Or the total of meat, bucket and brine?

Yes that's the estimated weight of the meat I took the weight of the bucket and water off the total weight and gave you guys what I believe is the weight of the hams.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Yes that's the estimated weight of the meat I took the weight of the bucket and water off the total weight and gave you guys what I believe is the weight of the hams.

So these are full hind leg hams? and you covered them with 1 gallon of brine?

 

[lintonskennel]

So these are full hind leg hams? and you covered them with 1 gallon of brine?

Yes they were full leg hams. I put them inside a turkey bag inside a 5 gallon bucket. it was 1 gallon of water plus a little bit extra to get it over top the shank end. everything is submerged.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Here is a ballpark guesstimate as to where you are, 1 gallon water with 28# meat (5# subtracted for bone weight) to that we add in 8tsp (56g) cure #1 and 1 1/2c Morton kosher salt 372g (combined salt 428g) if you left the meat in that brine for say 3 weeks for equilibrium the meat would end up with 2.5% salt and 212ppm nitrite, again this is a guess.

The big question I now have is do you have any idea how much of the brine you injected? Did you inject very well all along and around the bone? How big is your injector and how many full syringes did you pump into each leg?

 

[thirdeye]

SmokinEdge attacked your question by reverse engineering, using some knowns, and some estimated numbers. I think that looks pretty good.

I attacked your question by comparing the combination of essential variables needed to produce taste, tenderness, color and safety that I like to use. Since you mentioned 1-gallon plus 4 to 6 "extra cups" of water to insure covering, I split the difference to 5 cups. On small batch curing like most of us use, meat weight + water weight is the basis for calculations. However, a 28# ham is not quite small batch curing, so.... I added a little more weight to include the salt & sugar. So my bucket weight is a little heavier.

At this point, either longhand or the Digging Dog Calculator would work, but I chose Digging Dog, and started with 18,000 grams of weight in the bucket. Then chose 2% salt, and 2% sugar. Surprisingly, the amount of Cure #1 calculated out to 45 grams. And 8-teaspoons of Cure #1 is ~48grams. The percentages for salt and sugar are higher than what I like, but are not outside the ranges.

I'm also hoping you shot some of the brine around the bones, and the remainder in a grid pattern. These are the areas that Morton Salt recommends to get good coverage around rear leg ham bones.

 

[lintonskennel]

Here is a ballpark guesstimate as to where you are, 1 gallon water with 28# meat (5# subtracted for bone weight) to that we add in 8tsp (56g) cure #1 and 1 1/2c Morton kosher salt 372g (combined salt 428g) if you left the meat in that brine for say 3 weeks for equilibrium the meat would end up with 2.5% salt and 212ppm nitrite, again this is a guess.

The big question I now have is do you have any idea how much of the brine you injected? Did you inject very well all along and around the bone? How big is your injector and how many full syringes did you pump into each leg?

I used a 50 mililetter srying and probley put probley 8-10 injections inside close to the bone. My injector is 6". I tried to get as much in as I could around all parts of the hams.

 

[thirdeye]

I used a 50 mililetter srying and probley put probley 8-10 injections inside close to the bone. My injector is 6". I tried to get as much in as I could around all parts of the hams.

I don't see any red flags, so pay attention to how you like the overall product, and try to get honest feedback from family members. We all like it when someone says "Oh, this is great", but that tells me nothing. I want to know if it's too salty, too sweet, not sweet enough and so forth. Next time you can always make subtle changes if needed.

As a precaution, after you remove the hams from the brine, give them a good rinse, and a few hours of soaking in fresh water back in the fridge.