# From my smoker today



## rgroves (Mar 4, 2009)

This evening I finished smoking my hams. My usual poor-boy technique, with a grapefruit juice can full of chips and a soldering pencil. The smoker is a Weber kettle grill, with a metal trash can to extend the height. Cured per the Charcuterie book (blackstrap molasses cure), these are half hams. They sat in the cure for 12 days, confined in vacuum seal bags and turned every day. Then I rinsed off the cure, soaked them for 8 hrs, and into the cold smoke for 20 hrs. Cherry wood, with a finish on pecan wood because I ran out of cherry. Haven't weighed them yet, but I'll do that before coating with lard and wrapping in muslin for the aging part. This recipe has worked well for me, and in fact I have a half ham in the basement still wrapped and aging past one year. The other half has been lovingly eaten and it has an amazing glossy texture, color, and flavor. Today I bought a slicer at Cabelas, long overdue, and will be able to shave it paper thin. I hope. 
The other ham, white color, is salt cured. (also per Charcuterie book) 
Nothing but salt, a thick coating renewed as needed. This one will go unsmoked. Coat with lard and black pepper, and let it age. Never done one this way before. 
This smoking session settled something for me. I'm tired of using a kludge smoker. Need a for-real smokehouse.


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## Raeven (Oct 11, 2011)

Nicely done, and kudos for ingenuity! I hope you get a chance to build your smokehouse soon -- then you'll really teach us some things!


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## pmondo (Oct 6, 2007)

god that's some beautiful ham wish I could make ham like that


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## OH Boy (Dec 22, 2010)

Tell me about the soldering iron trick with a can of wood chips. Do you have to monkey around with it to keep it smoking or does it go for a long time? Seems like a great way to do cold smoke and not heat up the smoker hardly at all.


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## rgroves (Mar 4, 2009)

About the only trick with the soldering iron is to shake or poke it ever so often (every couple hours) to keep the iron in contact with wood chips and not with ashes. Mine has a large enough hole through the bottom side that it can breathe and support combustion, so sometimes I can pull out the soldering iron and let it go. A can of chips will make smoke for 4 hrs or more. Oh, and make sure the plastic body of the soldering iron isn't too close to the can because it can melt. But this setup doesn't make a lot of heat so cold smoking is easy.


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