home curing hams and bacon

[Anonymous]

Lately I've been getting into it, and I thought I'd give some credit to joeephus or whatever the f his name is for helping me find accurate information. Its hard to find good info on the net, but his advice was spot on. the only bad part is that now friends want all I can make. So far I've done 2 sides of bacon, and 5 hams. And have 6 more sides of bacon curing right now. This stuff sure is addicting. If anyone wants to get into it, its fun, easy, and some good #***!!!
Thanks joe, my wife now hates you for gettin me hooked on yet another hobby!

 

[Jogeephus]

Thanks but I bet she isn't complaining while she's enjoying a mouthful is she? ;-) I suspect most of the credit should go to you and the quality pigs you are using. BTW - you should post a pic of what you sent me. That did look marvelous.

 

[Anonymous]

I suspect your just being modest. Without talking to someone that has done it I would have been super leery.
I'm having issues posting pics from this phone for some reason. I can email them to anyone that wants em or to post em.

 

[Angus Cowman]

I will PM you my adress and can take any extra off of your hands :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[hillsdown]

My dad gave me a smoker for my bday and I just bought 2 whole hams . When I finally get some time I am going to be asking a million questions on brining/curing those babies and then smoking them . Want to have a big shindig here in June for my dad's 75 bday , so need to practice before I try them on unsuspecting guinea pigs lol.. ;-)

 

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind it takes 30-50 days to cure and equalize depending on the size of the ham...if you want to do some trial you may want to get started.

 

[Jogeephus]

Its slow business for sure but well worth the wait. Keep in mind the Bohemians were known to cure a ham at the birth of each daughter to be served on her wedding day. Haven't gotten that extreme yet but I do have a few things that have been aging for nearly two years but I don't think the prosciutto or black ham will last till the end of this year.

 

[Anonymous]

These are already cured and smoked. Ill get some pictures of the bacon in a few day once its done curing

 

[Anonymous]

Some slices:

 

[Jogeephus]

Looks good but Hook if you are going to be like Bobby Flay your gonna have to learn to plate and garnish a little better than that. :lol2:

 

[Anonymous]

It all looks the same in the end....

 

[Jogeephus]

Yeah, but Bobby Flay would dribble some green or red stuff on the plate and drop a piece of parsely or something on the plate or something.

 

[hillsdown]

That looks really good hooknline you did a great job on them.
I was wondering what kind of container should I get to soak them in brine. I was thinking about a lrg stainless steel stock pot with a lid. What is the best to use for this ?

 

[Anonymous]

Just for you Mr smart azz.

 

[Anonymous]

HD, I honesly don't know since I've only done the dry cures. On the size hams we were talking about, research it carefully.dry cure with a brine injection around the bones would be your best bet. If you do a brine, I would think ss would be your best bet

 

[Jogeephus]

Any nonreactive container will do. I've made a fair amount of corned beef in five gallon buckets and I also use plastic olive barrels with lids if I'm going to brine several hams but I prefer to dry cure.

On the left is a hard cider brined ham and the right is dry cured prosciutto. To me the brined ham looks much more appealing but the taste is nothing compared to the complexity of the dry cured ham.

Here are some slices from the prosciutto in the first picture. It doesn't get much better than this. This weekend, we plan on having veal scaloppini with prosciutto and sage with the blind calf I had to put down. Makes loosing a calf not so bad afterall.

 

[kenny thomas]

Don't know what all them big words are for what you are going to eat, but the ham sure looks good.

 

[Jogeephus]

Don't know what all them big words are for what you are going to eat, but the ham sure looks good.

:lol2: :lol2: Heck, I should have typed that is what I was told we were going to have cause I can only spell them not prounounce them. See I'm disabled cause I talk so slow that on these long words I run out of breath before I run out of word. But Hook and I are going to use my disability to our benefit cause we are going to get a tv show called the Redneck Kitchen and we are going to make millions. But basically what the conglomeration of words means is veal smashed with a meat hammer, wrapped in italian ham and rubbed with sage and quick fried on the skillet. Or in other words very thin country fried steak with a little ham on it.

 

[Anonymous]

Smoked with the smoke from a prescribed burn. We gotta come up with a better name. Maybe the hooknjoe redneck throback cookin hour

 

[kenny thomas]

Don't know what all them big words are for what you are going to eat, but the ham sure looks good.

:lol2: :lol2: Heck, I should have typed that is what I was told we were going to have cause I can only spell them not prounounce them. See I'm disabled cause I talk so slow that on these long words I run out of breath before I run out of word. But Hook and I are going to use my disability to our benefit cause we are going to get a tv show called the Redneck Kitchen and we are going to make millions. But basically what the conglomeration of words means is veal smashed with a meat hammer, wrapped in italian ham and rubbed with sage and quick fried on the skillet. Or in other words very thin country fried steak with a little ham on it.

With all the crazy shows on nowdays I think you could be on to something. I bet it would work.