# Venison Ham rubbed with rendered lard.



## archernut (Dec 5, 2012)

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I brined it using POPS brine recipe and 1/2 cup of molasses for 16 days. Weight was 14 lbs.













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Here it is after I dried it with paper towels and trimmed a little skin off of it.













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Smothered in fresh pork lard. I was out of bacon. :+(













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One of my favorite premade seasonings that I sprinkled over it.













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Ready to start smoking.













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My last bag of chips.

I'll post more when it's finished. It's at 135 after 6 hours. I'll pull it when it reaches 152. Smoker temp was at 195. I raised it to 205 to hopefully finish before the sun goes down. I can't wait to try this.


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## pike2 (Dec 5, 2012)

that should turn out good


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## daveomak (Dec 5, 2012)

My-T-Fine looking ham.....    I'm in for the finish......  
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






  .....


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## owlcreeksmoker4 (Dec 5, 2012)

looks delicious :yahoo:


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## mike johnson (Dec 5, 2012)

OMG!!! I so wish I was at your house right now..


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## smokinhusker (Dec 6, 2012)

That is going to be so good!


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## thoseguys26 (Dec 7, 2012)

Can you explain your brine a bit? I have a small mule ham curing right now. What kind of lard did you use and how did you incorporate it into your brine?


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## woodcutter (Dec 7, 2012)

Very nice! How did it turn out with molasses?


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## pike2 (Dec 8, 2012)

wondering if larding the meat would make any difference, it puts that fat on the inside and through the meat


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## archernut (Dec 11, 2012)

I sincerely apologize for not finishing this thread last week.

thoseguys26,  the brine is pops recipe from this site.

real simple curing brine:

for every 1 gallon of water, add:

1/3 - 1 cup sea salt (depending if you're on a lo-salt diet)

1 cup granulated sugar or Splenda[emoji]174[/emoji]

1 cup brown sugar or Splenda[emoji]174[/emoji] brown sugar mix

1 tbsp cure no. 1 pink salt

stir thoroughly until clear amber color, pour over meat, inject if necessary to cure from inside-out as well as outside-in

weight down with a partially filled 1 qt or 1 gal. ziploc bag or bags to keep meat immersed

Curing times vary with meat, but generally overnight to 2-3 days for chickens and turkeys, 8-10 days buckboard bacon, 10-14 days belly bacon, pork shoulder, whole butts, 3-4 weeks whole hams, 10-20 days corned beef (fresh beef roasts, briskets, rolled rib roasts, etc.) If whole muscle is more than 2" thick, then inject so it can cure i/o as well as o/i, and/or in and around bone structures, etc.

You can add any other flavorings you'd like, this is just the basic curing brine. 1 heaping tablespoon of cure is about 1 ounce. The maximum concentration allowed safely is 3.84 ounces per 1 gallon of brine (24 lbs.per 100 gallons: 16 oz. x 24 = 384 ounces, 1/100th is 3.84 ounces). You can experiment with different concentrations as long as you keep it between those parameters:







The lard was rendered from two hogs I butchered two weeks ago. I rubbed the entire ham with it to keep the venison ham moist. I like to use bacon also, but the lard was right there so I used it. It worked out perfect. Also I had a water pan in the smoker to add humidity.













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Here it is after 6 hours.

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View media item 184357


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## archernut (Dec 11, 2012)

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It's done! :+)













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Another angle.













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The first slices look mighty tasty.

This turned out excellent. The flavor was to die for. It was sweet and salty with a mild smokey flavor.

I must add for those who are wanting to do this, it is very important to inject, inject, inject. The brine needs to work from the inside too. If you do a bone in like I did, inject that brine at all angles around the bone. Keep the ham submerged in the brine. Don't let it float. Rinse the ham with cold water once it is done brining and wipe dry with paper towels. It will remove the extra salt. I dried mine and sat back in the fridge overnight before I put it in the smoker.

Once in the smoker I started out at 150 degrees for two hours. Then I added the chips and smoked for three hours at 185 degrees. I had to raise the temp to 210 to finish it off to 152. It was cold out and I wanted to eat. lol It took 14 hours in the smoker, but it was worth it.

I will be doing this again, but will do a smaller one next time.

Jodie


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## archernut (Dec 11, 2012)

Woodcutter,

The molasses gave it a sweetness that was perfect. I added it to my bacon and pork ham brines also.

Jodie


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## jrod62 (Dec 11, 2012)

Looks great Thumbs Up


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## daveomak (Dec 11, 2012)

Jodie, morning....The ham looks great... nice job....   Dave


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## archernut (Dec 11, 2012)

Thanks Dave.

I can say it didn't last very long.


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## mike johnson (Dec 11, 2012)

That looks mighty tasty.


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## dirtsailor2003 (Dec 11, 2012)

Wow, looks great! Seeing all these great venison smokes makes me a bit sad though. We didn't get any this year! Now I'll have to wait until next year to try them out!


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## michael ark (Dec 12, 2012)

Looks great!


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## archernut (Dec 12, 2012)

Thanks everybody for the compliments.


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## stjoeguy1122 (Dec 13, 2012)

Looks great, never thought of leaving it on the bone.  
Thanks for sharing.


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## big game cook (Dec 14, 2012)

wow that looks great. i havent made venison ham for a few years. missing it now.


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## jayj123 (Dec 14, 2012)

Could you describe how you rendered the lard? I did this one year with trimmed fat from some butts. The Lard turned out great but the pot I used was rendered (
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






)  useless as I couldn't clean it. Thanks for any advice!


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## archernut (Dec 19, 2012)

I butchered two hogs awhile back. I saved all the fat. I used a big two burner fish cooking pan. Filled the pan full of the fat and slowly let it melt on low heat. Once the pan had enough melted fat, I turned up the heat to around 325. This fried the cracklings. Once the cracklings were crispy, I removed the pan from the heat, removed the cracklings, and let the grease set up. Once it is set up, it is rendered lard.

Some people use an oven, I use my two burner propane cooker. I used a long thermometer that I have for deep frying to determine temperature.

As I described earlier, I used the lard because I didn't have any bacon on hand.

Hope that helped

Jodie


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## slaymaker (Dec 20, 2012)

That looks and sounds awesome!  I've been thinking about trying one of these myself.  I've got 4 weekends left to get a deer with my bow.  I have some Maple Ham & Bacon Cure that I bought from sausagemaker.com.  It made some awesome buckboard bacon from a pork roast.  I was thinking about using this along with some honey (I am a beekeeper, so I have plenty of that...) to cure and flavor a deer roast, then smoking it real slow.  I have hickory, pecan, and cherry wood chips.  Still trying to decide which would taste better, or maybe a combination.


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## cfoxtrot (Dec 30, 2012)

Wonder piece of meat you have there! I will definitely be trying this, thanks so much for the info and pictures!


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## Deer Meat (Jan 3, 2013)

This is something I need to make. I have 2 deer in the freezer,and it has been to long since I did any smokin'


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## scootermagoo (Jan 3, 2013)




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