Ham Wet Cure

By Dustin

This does about 30 lbs of meat.

In my personal opinion, if you are going to eat the hams soon, possibly refrigerating, or will freeze them, then you do not need the ‘cure’ part of the recipe. I have been brining without that ingredient and am very pleased with the results.

Another change is I don’t have Pickling Spice per say. Rather I spice to taste. For lamb I use thyme. For ham and bacon I use cloves and black pepper. Spice to suite your tastes. Experiment. If you have it I would suggest adding one cup of maple syrup for bacon. If not I would recommend adding an extra cup of brown sugar.

Ingredients

• On the Prague, see the instructions that comes with it. From the web site:
• 3 gallon Water
• 3 cup Pickling Salt (I have also used table salt)
• 1 cup Sugar / maple syrup / brown sugar (to taste)
• 2 tsp Spice to taste (thyme for lamb, black pepper & cloves for ham)
• Prague #1 Cure -optional!
• Use 1 oz. of cure for 25 lbs. of meat or 1 level teaspoon of cure for 5 lbs. of meat. Mix cure with cold water.

Details

Adapted from sugarmtnfarm.com

Preparation

Step 1

I boil the water to sterilize it as much as possible and to make it better dissolve the sugars. Empty the clean buckets of their sterilizing bleach solution and carefully pour in the hot water. Add the ingredients and stir. Once the ingredients are mixed, cool the brine to 40°F before you add the meat the to the brine.

When you add the meat, make sure it is completely covered by the solution. If you have a large piece of meat, like a ham, you may want to either debone it or inject the solution into the depths of the meat in order to get better penetration. You can get special syringes for doing this and they are worth having. Mine cost only $5 at a local store.

Finally snap the lid on and place the bucket in a cool place (38F to 44F is good) for four days to a week depending on how salty you like your meat. Higher temperatures risk bacteria growth – not good. Lower temperatures cause the brine to stop working. I keep a calibrated thermometer on one of the buckets.