# Feral Hog Hams for Thanksgiving with Qview!!!



## tallbm (Dec 10, 2017)

My father called me up in October and said a buddy of his trapped a few feral/wild hogs and asked him if he wanted some, so long story short I got about a 60 pound hog to cook on! :)
I smoked and ate everything but the back legs and saved them to make Thanskgiving Hams (8.9 pounds of hams).
Pics first and then a write up.

1 Ham bagged, other Ham visible, also Both Hams hanging







Closeup of hams, and further shot of Hams







Deboned Ham and Both Hams deboned/vac sealed next to a gatorade bottle for size comparison








*Brine/Cure:* I used LEM's Ham Kit that is designed for 10 pounds of Hams... I had 8.9 Pounds of hams so I knew it would be a little salty.  I injected brine and soaked in tub brine like the kit instructs.  I did so for 5 days.  I probably should have only done for 4 days.  I pulled, fry tested and had to soak in ice water because it was waaaay too salty.  I soaked for 3 hours but probably should have done 6 hours.  The fry test after 3 hours seemed ok but I didn't test meat all over after the soak.  It was still a little salty in the end.

*Wood:*  70% Pit Boss Competition Blend (M/H/C) and about 30% Pefect Pellet 100% Hickory added

*Cook/Smoke:* I don't recall the details of how long I cooked and smoked these Hams but I want to say it took about 8 hours.  I applied smoke for about 6 hours and I'm not sure If I applied double smoke or not.  I took the hams to 165F IT because these were wild hogs and 165F would guarantee killing all parasites that the wild animal my have picked up.

*Flavor:* The Hams tasted pretty good but were too salty in my opinion.  It was definitely a huge hit at the Thanksgiving dinner.  When mixed with stuffing and other sides the salt subsided some.  Also the salt saturation was uneven as some smaller parts were saltier than bigger parts of the ham.
The kind of crusty/bark'ish outside was nice and not something I commonly see on hams so that was cool, though I think it would be even more enjoyable on larger hams rather than these little hams.
Finally, I was not blown away at all by the flavor of the ham.  I was expecting a homemade ham to really show a major difference than a store bought, I was surprised to not see much of a difference... though everyone at the dinner raved about the ham meat and one person ate so much of it they thought they were going to be sick because they overstuffed themselves lol

*Lessons Learned:* 

These feral/wild hog hams were little and such little hams don't need to have much crust/bark
With little hams I should probably wrap them in foil to have less bark and more soft meat
Using a Ham Kit that has cure mixed into the seasoning is not a wise thing to do and I will avoid it in the future (after I use the rest of this stuff up).  Nature does not make hams in 10 pound increments and being unable to measure out the seasonings to match the weight of the hams is just a recipe for over salting
I will soak for 6 hours no matter what next time if soaking is needed at all
I think I can improve but I'm not sure I can make a far superior Ham compared to one bought at a store.  I guess 1-2 more attempts will let me know if Hams from scratch are something I want to keep in my meat smoking tool belt
There is little to no easy to find or acceptable/accurate information online about smoking hams from scratch.  There is plenty of double smoked ham and even a bit of smoked green ham information but not so much for "from scratch" cured and smoked hams
Well I hope this info helps someone out there!


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## motocrash (Dec 10, 2017)

Well they sure look good regardless of being too salty.Love the wild pig meat,great flavor.At least the few I've had.


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## tallbm (Dec 10, 2017)

motocrash said:


> Well they sure look good regardless of being too salty.Love the wild pig meat,great flavor.At least the few I've had.


Thanks!

I'm in 100% agreement on the flavor of wild pig.  It is so much more flavorful than the more delicate meat of farm raised pork.


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## motocrash (Dec 10, 2017)

Do you have Javelinas where you live in TX?


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## tallbm (Dec 10, 2017)

motocrash said:


> Do you have Javelinas where you live in TX?


They are mainly in South Texas.  I hunt in Central TX or in North TX so I don't come across them.

Now all over Texas are feral/wild pigs that are not Javelina. 
The younger dumber feral/wild pigs get trapped more often then the big smarter ones.  That is what happened in this case.  They eat very well. 

I eat them of all sizes but I think the best are 185 pounds and under.  Under 100 pounds are very very very good.  I would love to get my hands on like a 20 pounder and smoke like a suckling pig but I have yet to get one that small.  That small they are likely to still be hanging around mama so I would need to get them all in a trap or hunt/pop Mama and then get the sucklings if/as they hang around.  I would also need to be hunting hunting with my 300BLK or a 5.56/223 and take had shots so those little bastards don't get turned into sausage by the bullet :p


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## indaswamp (Jan 17, 2018)

Glad you finally made your little hams. They look awesome.

The info is out there. Lemme look around and find the links I used.


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## indaswamp (Jan 17, 2018)

Very old school as the first recipe calls for rock salt and salt peter. (not recommended, sub kosher and cure #1)
http://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/curing-ham.html


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## indaswamp (Jan 17, 2018)

https://melissaknorris.com/howtosaltcureham/


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## indaswamp (Jan 17, 2018)

[QUOTE="tallbm, post: 1776561]I would love to get my hands on like a 20 pounder and smoke like a suckling pig but I have yet to get one that small.  [/QUOTE]

BACON BITS! 
We have put a whole little pig on the pellet smoker at the firehouse. That one was 32#. I should snapped some pics. but did not think about it. We skinned it out and the meat dried out a little on the outer crust. Next time we do one, I'm gonna burn the hair off with a propane torch and scrape the hair off to leave the skin on.


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## tallbm (Jan 17, 2018)

indaswamp said:


> [QUOTE="tallbm, post: 1776561]I would love to get my hands on like a 20 pounder and smoke like a suckling pig but I have yet to get one that small.



BACON BITS!
We have put a whole little pig on the pellet smoker at the firehouse. That one was 32#. I should snapped some pics. but did not think about it. We skinned it out and the meat dried out a little on the outer crust. Next time we do one, I'm gonna burn the hair off with a propane torch and scrape the hair off to leave the skin on.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for those links!  I'm quite good at using the google but I just couldn't find too much info, looks like I need to refine my search terms in the future for "salt cured hams" lol.

The ham came out pretty well.  A little salty but people didn't seem to mind as they devoured it and kept going back for more.

I hear ya on the little guys drying out.  I too would love to scorch and scrape a hog so I am totally on board with you there.  I looked at getting a roofing torch for the job BUT I would have to have good access to hogs for me to go down that road and my access is very limited at the moment.  

I did smoke the front legs of this hog and what I did was keep as much fat as I could when processing it and laid it over the top of the bare meat spots to keep the meat protected.  This did the trick very well.  I did the same thing with portions of the ribs.  I would love to take another shot at curing wild pork hams and I'll use up the rest of the ham kit I have but I will tone down the amounts and just cure longer so the salt content is good and the cure penetrates well :)


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## kauai808 (Jul 17, 2018)

Man, this thread makes me want to try my own wild hams.  Great job!


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## tallbm (Jul 17, 2018)

kauai808 said:


> Man, this thread makes me want to try my own wild hams.  Great job!


Hi there and welcome!

Thanks!  I thought they were just OK but everyone else was acting blown away at the flavor hahaha.
I would love to get into more of them and hopefully I can shoot a big, not so smelly, one in October.  I'll ham up on of the back legs if I do and I'm positive I can make it better then this attempt :)

Feral/Wild hog is soooooo good.  It's almost like a different meat flavor-wise when compared to farm raised pork.


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## browneyesvictim (Jul 17, 2018)

One of these days I will make it down to Texas for some hog hunting!!!
This just looks like a kick in the head!
Helibacon.com


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## tallbm (Jul 18, 2018)

browneyesvictim said:


> One of these days I will make it down to Texas for some hog hunting!!!
> This just looks like a kick in the head!
> Helibacon.com



I've seen and heard of helicopter hog hunts/eradications but never with full auto.  That's wild.

I read here https://www.dallasnews.com/news/animals/2017/11/21/hog-apocalypse-hold-pesky-wild-pigs-taking-texas
that 2/3 of the population must be removed every year to keep the population stable and right now only 29% (less than 1/3) is being removed.

Imagine if the regulation on feral hogs could be changed so that they weren't treated exactly like farm raised hogs in the area of meat inspection and harvesting. 
Imagine if they could be inspected like within 30 minutes after being harvested to ensure the meat was good enough to be used in certain commercial pork products! 

The estimated number of feral hogs in TX is 1.5 million.  I would seriously consider opening a hog harvesting and supply business since theoretically I would have 999,900 free feral hogs a year I could harvest!  It would almost be like the cattle drive and cowboy days lol.  Yes I understand it's not that straight forward but heck a free resource is a free resource.

Anyhow I'll have to stick to my 1-2 feral hogs a year that I generally harvest and I guess that's ok.  I just wish I could do a bigger part... and have a dedicated feral pork freezer :p


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## browneyesvictim (Jul 18, 2018)

It seems poisoning will need to be the final solution. The USDA started a $20 million program this year for eradication. Part of which is  a $1.5 M research study in Fort Collins, Colorado a short while ago. Of all things, they are using SODIUM NITRITE in the bait to do the dirty work! It has already been successful in New Zealand and Australia for their feral swine populations. I guess the pigs can smell it so they are working on encapsulating it.

Until then I would be happy to participate in any hunt/eradication, with or without the helicopter!


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## tallbm (Jul 18, 2018)

browneyesvictim said:


> It seems poisoning will need to be the final solution. The USDA started a $20 million program this year for eradication. Part of which is  a $1.5 M research study in Fort Collins, Colorado a short while ago. Of all things, they are using SODIUM NITRITE in the bait to do the dirty work! It has already been successful in New Zealand and Australia for their feral swine populations. I guess the pigs can smell it so they are working on encapsulating it.
> 
> Until then I would be happy to participate in any hunt/eradication, with or without the helicopter!



Cure the pigs to kill them hahaha.  Then you can take the hams right off and smoke them immediately... what an appropriate full circle for this post :P


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## grabber (Jul 19, 2018)

We don't have feral swine in WNY but they're coming.  My question is, how do you handle the problems of feral swine, re trichinosis and other diseases that they may transfer to humans.  Cook to certain temps, do commercial seasonings have ingredients to take care of them, freeze to low temps?  Any help or advice on how to handle meat from feral swine would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.  Be safe out there.


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## tallbm (Jul 19, 2018)

grabber said:


> We don't have feral swine in WNY but they're coming.  My question is, how do you handle the problems of feral swine, re trichinosis and other diseases that they may transfer to humans.  Cook to certain temps, do commercial seasonings have ingredients to take care of them, freeze to low temps?  Any help or advice on how to handle meat from feral swine would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.  Be safe out there.



The most commonly used method is to cook to an IT of 165F or higher.  
I believe some people do the freeze approach but I'm not so well versed on it and I'm not sure that all the bad micro-organisms are killed that way.  It seems heat will get them all.

I make sure I cook all of my feral hog meat to 165F or higher, even when I smoke sausages from the meat.  This means I usually have to walk my smoker temp up to 180F or a little higher to get to that 165F IT of the sausage.  I've had no issues with fat out, you just gotta walk it up is all :)


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## indaswamp (Dec 27, 2019)

tallbm said:


> I believe some people do the freeze approach but I'm not so well versed on it and I'm not sure that all the bad micro-organisms are killed that way.


tallbm, freezing the wild hog meat is for killing the trichinosis bugs. If I remember right, it's 30 days @ 9*F...
I do not know how freezing affects other pathogens though.

Last wild hog I was given, the guy power washed the hog prior to gutting....was the cleanest hog I've ever broken down. I will adopt that practice from now on. The pressure washing also removed the ticks and lice....along with the mud....


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## tallbm (Dec 28, 2019)

indaswamp said:


> tallbm, freezing the wild hog meat is for killing the trichinosis bugs. If I remember right, it's 30 days @ 9*F...
> I do not know how freezing affects other pathogens though.
> 
> Last wild hog I was given, the guy power washed the hog prior to gutting....was the cleanest hog I've ever broken down. I will adopt that practice from now on. The pressure washing also removed the ticks and lice....along with the mud....


Lol nice to hear about that process.
I thought freezing to kill trichinois had to be like -10F or something like that.  I'll dig into it  a little bit.

With it being hams it didnt hurt going to 165F but would be nice to not have to take sausage up that high since it has a slimmer room for error tempting fat out lol.


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