Ham Brining Recipe
Many people want to have a great quality ham at home. Ham brining offers you that in a quick and simple way. That beautiful pink color and flavor we all like in ham, bacon or other meats can be done by curing.
Servings: 1
Calories: 99kcal
Equipment
- Syringe meat injector
- Thermometer
- Lidded container safe for food
- A smoker or grill
Ingredients
Ham Brine
- Non-iodized or regular table salt
- Kosher salt
- Granulated sugar
- Brown sugar
- Honey
- Maple syrup
Instructions
Sugar Level for Sweetness
- The sugar cuts the severity of the salt and adds a nice flavor. You can use any natural sweetener that is water soluble for your ham.
- Most sweeteners have the same level of sweetness when they are measured, but can vary a lot by weight.
- One-third of a cup of sugar would cut the severity and you would most likely not taste the sweetness.
- From one cup to about a cup and a half, you will taste the sweetness and using a cup and three quarters, you would definitely taste the sweetness.
Nitrite
- Brine-cured meat should have 120-200 parts per million of nitrate going into the meat.
- For a home-cured ham, it is recommended to do 120PPM.
- For brining, the 1 teaspoon per 5 pounds of meat cannot be used.
- How much you are going to inject per pound of meat will depend on how much nitrite you are going to need per gallon.
- You will need less nitrite with the more brine you inject. This is because you are pumping more into the ham itself.
- When pumping 10%, it means you are pumping 10% of the ham’s weight.
- Pumping 20% means you need 50% less nitrite in the brine.
- This is because you are now pumping in twice as much.
- Injecting more brine into the meat will not affect the sugar and salt levels.
- The nitrite will be locked into the meat and after a few days the sugar and salt levels will push through and equalize along with the brine.
Water
- Use distilled or filtered water.
- If you must use tap water, first boil the water to get rid of the chlorine and kill any pathogens.
- Let it cool to room temperature before you begin to mix the brine.
- Make sure you do not add the nitrite cure until after your water has cooled.
Adding Flavoring
- Simmer the spices that you want to use and let cool.
- Mix the brine and spices together and make sure you count the water used in the spices when measuring your water count.
Smoking You Ham
- Remove your ham from the brine. Put it on a wire rack and throw out the brine. It cannot be used again.
- Dry off your ham and let air dry by a fan until the ham feels sticky.
- There is no time limit on this process.
- You will just have to check it often to see if it is tacky.
- That tacky film is called pellicle.
- It is a layer of protein that will allow the smoke to stick to your brined ham.
- Once it is tacky, score your ham in both directions.
- Add your spices and smoke your ham in whatever manner your family likes their ham.
- It can be hung in netting in your smoker or you can do it on the grill.
- If using a grill, you will want to put a good-sized chunk of wood on top of 6 or 8 charcoal briquettes to create the smoke.
- Do not soak the wood first.
- This will give you at least 2 to 3 hours of cooking time and great smoke.
Nutrition
Serving: 100g | Calories: 99kcal