Brined Fresh Ham

There are two main types of hams: wet and dry cured. Dry cured hams are like Virginia hams, long-lasting, super salty, and full of win. Wet cured hams are also called “fresh hams” sometimes, and that is because they are not cured well enough to store long-term (without freezing, of course) and so they are eaten “fresh.” Fresh hams are still cured, though. In a brine. Hams, including fresh hams, can be smoked for longer storage, but generally in modernity fresh hams are smoked before eating (or before they’re packaged for sale).

This ham happened because my friend Richard shot a pig (I assume javelina, since that’s the native species that people are often encouraged to hunt due to overpopulation), texted me a picture of said pig, and asked if I wanted some. Of course I did. And even if I hadn’t, I would’ve said yes because Ross can’t ever say no to ham. Like, never. He becomes unreasonably giddy when he eats ham, and if he eats enough of it I will generally abandon him to Child Tester, because she’s also a giddy ham person.

The other reason this became a ham and not a roast or something else is because I am always trying to figure out how new foods I might want to know how to make. Cured meats is an unexplored territory for me in terms of fermentation, so really, what better time to take a crack at it than when a hind quarter is gifted to you?

The last reason is actually about why this became a fresh ham rather than a Virginia, not about why it was a ham at all. What I wanted was Virginia. But I live in a rental, and I’m not convinced many landlords would be okay with tenants hanging meat from the ceiling of a rental unit. That just seems like it’s really not that cool of a thing to do. Okay, I actually wanted a prosciutto instead of a Virginia, but a Virginia ham is a fine substitute for prosciutto. Same rules apply to tenants, though, I feel. Don’t hang meat for a long time if you’re renting; just wet cure it and go about your business.

Some Notes

What I really did not wish to do was purchase curing/pink salt. When I’m learning how to do something in this general overarching category of “random survival skills I hope to never need but intend to enjoy having while they’re not in need,” I try to learn them in a way that I am not reliant on modern conveniences. I couldn’t ditch the refrigeration component due to aforementioned rental situation, but I do understand how to do it if I am somehow thrown back to the 18th-century and making hams.

Anyway, my goal was to make this as reliant as possible on not needing a store to perform the task, although I made allowances for spices that don’t grow here in Texas. Not a small percentage of those spices, either.

Y’all do this as high or low tech as you like, of course. Also feel free to change the spices.

Important Note

This recipe is largely going to be explained in captions of pictures. It’ll make more sense to the overwhelming majority of you if you can see exactly what happened while you’re reading about it, step by step.

The Brine

The brine is a 10% brine, because that’s what you need for ham. What this means is that for every litre of water, you’ll be dissolving 100g of salt. NOT iodized salt. Any salt but iodized is fine, so if you want a really expensive salt, go nuts. If not, use the 49 cents per tub “free flowing” salt. Free flowing is not iodized, generally speaking, but any tub without iodine will have a disclaimer on it saying so in order to allow you to be certain of what you’re getting.

Do not reduce the amount of salt. This is a safety issue. Using the wrong salinity in a brine is dicey at best, and you’re putting anyone who eats it at risk of food poisoning, which obviously can and sometimes does lead to death.

With vegetables, you often have flexibility on the salinity, but your hams need to be 10%. This isn’t flexible or negotiable, so please follow this one rule and eat safe ham. Pretty much everything else is negotiable here, but not that.

There’s a large handful of brown sugar that you can’t see in this picture. My large handful is roughly 1/3 cup in volume. You should adjust this to your preferred level of sweetness in a ham.

What all is in here is 4 stalks of celery, including the leaves (this replaces pink salt, but you can skip it if desired), 1 head of garlic, cut in half, about a tablespoon of wild foraged older horseweed leaves (you should use oregano, because that’s what it tastes like if you’re using older leaves), about a tablespoon of white pepper, tablespoon of coriander seed, roughly 1/4 teaspoon of both brown and yellow mustard seeds, 2 whole cloves, 10 allspice berries, 3 cardamom pods, a 1” shaving of cinnamon bark, 2 dried limes (substitute: fresh lime or lemon juice, and/or sumac. It’s not going to be the same, but it’ll give you those acidic notes these provide), 4 dried chile arboles, and 7 bay leaves (if you’re using California bay, 3-4). Unless it could be directly counted (and the celery), these quantities are approximate. I didn’t measure, but I took a picture so we could guesstimate and so I could share this with y’all.

All of this gets added to whatever container your brine is going in. When you make your brine, boil the water, add the salt, then let it cool to room temp before pouring it over your pork and brine seasonings. I want to say I needed 2-3 litres of brine for this, but don’t quote me on that.

Everything is in there. When you do this, you want extra brine to put in a zip lock bag to weigh it down. You can also use weights, of course, but if you don’t have big enough weights for something this size, a bag of brine keeps most of the spices and such submerged, without risk of diluting your brine if the bag breaks. Check daily to see if you need to skim any scum or remove some floating bits.

Your ham will live in your container, in the fridge, for 3-8 days. I did 8. I think 6 would’ve been better for our tastes, as this was a bit saltier than any of the kids who ate this enjoyed. CT said the flavor was amazing but it was too salty. All the adults agreed it could’ve done with less time in the brine, but that it wasn’t salty enough to not eat it. If that happens to you where you’ve overdone it, you can soak your ham in fresh water to extract some of that salt. I wouldn’t do more than 12 hours of soaking before you smoke and/or bake your ham.

Here’s what the meat looks like an hour or so after I put it all together. I had been struggling to remember what kind of salt I used, but looking at this color tells me it was the Hawaiian salt I was gifted by my friend Sachie.

Day 3, bag removed so you can see what’s happening. A lot if happening! I had wondered if it’d look this vigorous after only 3 days in the fridge.

Not the greatest picture, but also Day 3. You can see a lot of stuff has sunken to the bottom, and there’s a noticeable color shift in the meat. Things are HAPPENING!

This picture didn’t stretch well and is way too small, but it’s the ham after I pulled it from the brine. The ham was pulled on day 8, and it sat I believe 5 more days in the fridge in its bag. The reason the cloth looks weird is because it’s covering the foil covered bone that didn’t fit in the gallon bag.

My fridge is tiny, y’all. I really needed that container out. You do what you’ve gotta do, too.

Ham out of the fridge, at room temp, going into the smoker. You can probably see that Ross snaked the coals around the outside of the smoker so as to be able to smoke for as long as needed. That flesh looks beautiful, though.

We used an Old Smokey that Ross’ bff Stephen gifted us, and that he had installed a thermometer on. The biggest challenge he had smoking it was that the smoker really did want to be hotter than he wanted it to be, and to hold that heat, so he had to do a bit more work keeping the temps down and the smoke in.

Please excuse the mess.

1-2 hours into the smoking process, after it was turned.

Side one. I believe this smoked for 6-8 hours total.

Side 2. The smoker continued on for a total of 14 hours, so just short of what I’d need for a brisket. Space for more coals in that snake, though, so definitely can use an Old Smokey for actual proper smoking of this type and the brisket type.

Yes. This is the ham once it was opened up. It was soooo delicious!

S’mores were for dessert, since the smoker was still working and didn’t care if it got converted to that use.

So that’s it, y’all. That’s how you make a fresh ham! There’s definitely some patience involved, but it’s a relatively easy process. I also really appreciate just how many people’s gifts were involved in this process, making it a true community ham!