# Salt curing hams



## redgate (Sep 18, 2008)

We are about to slaughter our first home-raised pigs. Hubby has helped slaughter several before, but this will be the first time on his own and our first curing. I have a recipe for cured ham, using salt and brown sugar. It suggests using the scald method to leave the skin on, though, and we were hoping to skin this time, due to it being Christmas week/time shortage. Will the cure still work if we skin the hogs first?


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Never heard of skinning a hog for curing.


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

I wouldn't skin then salt cure. The meat will take in so much salt you won't be able to rinse it all out. It'll probably be "salt pork"

Wade


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Sure you can. More liquid, less salt in the brine. I add a quart of apple juice. Whole hams have no skin on the big end. Butt cut, both ends. I use less salt on smoked hams than cured hams. No different than skinned fish gets less salt than fish, skin on. Doesn't look as pretty but I always skin bear and raccoon hams....James


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

It depends on how you're going to preserve the pork and whether you're using a straight salt brine or a cure that has nitrites/nitrates.

Without the skin, the brine will better absorb into all surfaces of the meat. With a pure salt brine, this means more salt will enter the meat and would require soaking in fresh water to draw most of it out before eating. For "fresh" hams that will be frozen, this will probably be too salty.

HOWEVER - if you're going to smoke the hams (especially if bone-in and later dried for hanging), then taking the skin off is actually one of the best ways to get enough salt and nitrate cure into dense meat.


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## redgate (Sep 18, 2008)

We are curing our own in order to avoid the nitrates and nitrites. I have been researching different recipes and methods. It seems so simple, yet it's overwhelming.


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

redgate said:


> We are curing our own in order to avoid the nitrates and nitrites. I have been researching different recipes and methods. It seems so simple, yet it's overwhelming.


OK. If you don't use nitrites/nitrates, an extremely heavy salt mixture, or lactic acid fermentation you aren't really "curing". I wouldn't recommend cold-smoking a ham that hasn't been properly cured.

You can brine or salt-pack a "fresh" ham (without nitrates/nitrites) in the refrigerator for a few days to remove some water and add flavor, but they'll need to be frozen or canned afterwards and then cooked in a smoker (hot-smoking) later to get the flavor.

If you cold-smoke an uncured ham, even if you've brined it beforehand, it will begin to sour and may have already begun unsafe amounts of spoilage before you can finish the smoking process and cook/freeze/can it.


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

Part of the confusion is that we Americans tend to think that "ham" is the process, so any cured and smoked cut of meat is a ham. But "ham" is actually the cut of meat specifically the rear thigh of a pig, not the method used to prepare or process it. You can have cured and uncured or smoked or unsmoked hams, and you can have other meats that are cured and smoked like a ham but aren't really hams


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

Anyone interested preserving homegrown meat via salting, curing or drying with or without smoking should read the 5 related articles here first: https://www.foodpreservationmethods.com/meat-preservation/meats


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

An extremely well-written article debunking many nitrite/nitrate myths:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/07/does-banning-hotdogs-and-bacon-make.html


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## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

redgate said:


> We are curing our own in order to avoid the nitrates and nitrites. I have been researching different recipes and methods. It seems so simple, yet it's overwhelming.


There is a LOT of bad information on the internet about curing. The fact that you or anyone else here has not mentioned a single word about brine injection is a clear example of that. And I think that trying to avoid nitrites/nitrates is a VERY poor decision on your part. Botulism is a far greater threat to human health than nitrates are. Besides, modern cure makers have done a very good job of reducing the nitrate to the minimally functional level, so nitrate levels are far lower then when the nitrate/cancer scare first started.

A whole ham is too large for salt to effectively penetrate into the center before the meat starts to rot. It is considered a standard procedure to use a meat syringe to inject the brine solution into the center of the ham, near the bone. You're injecting into the spots that salt would migrate last if penetrating only from the outside surface. Vein pumping is another related technique for getting salt inside faster.

Please stop reading internet recipes and get a published text on meat curing. The recipes are much more throughly vetted than whatever recipe some random individual will put on the internet.

Check out this book by Kutas.
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Sausage...&ie=UTF8&qid=1388252526&sr=1-1&keywords=kutas 
I've tried several of his techniques and recipes and am personally pleased with the results. My home-corned beef is far better tasting and higher quality than anything I've ever bought in the store.


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

Three more awesome references for safely curing meat:

A Guide to Canning, Freezing, Curing & Smoking Meat, Fish & Game by Eastman

Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Ruhlman et al 

Meat Smoking And Smokehouse Design by Marianski


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## redgate (Sep 18, 2008)

MichaelK! said:


> Please stop reading internet recipes and get a published text on meat curing. The recipes are much more throughly vetted than whatever recipe some random individual will put on the internet.


We have made our decision at this point, so this thread is kind of a mute issue for now. However, I wanted to throw out there to please not assume newbies like us are just willy-nilly latching on to the first internet article we come across. To the contrary, our personal "research" includes a number of the links offered here, we own some of the books listed and more not listed, and we have spent countless hours reading reviews, safety reports, and even USDA and FDA articles to help us make an educated decision. This forum is an excellent resource for new individuals, and I am very thankful for it. However, it never amazes me how comments like this are so quick to be thrown around by folks who may otherwise have a lot of helpful info to offer. Be careful about judging and assuming. It can be a very discouraging turn-off to what could otherwise be a helpful post.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

There are also people, like my daughter, who are very sensitive to nitrates/nitrite and can't have them.


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## HerseyMI (Jul 22, 2012)

terri9630 said:


> There are also people, like my daughter, who are very sensitive to nitrates/nitrite and can't have them.


 Then your daughter should know to ask before eating cured meats... correct? That is odd though... you have more nitrites(?) in your saliva than a piece of cured ham. Does she have to take meds for it?


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

HerseyMI said:


> Then your daughter should know to ask before eating cured meats... correct? That is odd though... you have more nitrites(?) in your saliva than a piece of cured ham. Does she have to take meds for it?



She eats home raised foods. No meds. As long as she avoids eating foods with added nitrates she doesn't have a problem. Her Drs have some scientific mumbo jumbo explanation for it. We just raise as much as possible and watch what she eats, and drinks. At our last place the water company would send out monthly water reports and it always said the nitrate levels were above recommended levels and people sensitive to them shouldn't drink it.


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## BO1967 (Dec 7, 2020)

MichaelK! said:


> There is a LOT of bad information on the internet about curing. The fact that you or anyone else here has not mentioned a single word about brine injection is a clear example of that. And I think that trying to avoid nitrites/nitrates is a VERY poor decision on your part. Botulism is a far greater threat to human health than nitrates are. Besides, modern cure makers have done a very good job of reducing the nitrate to the minimally functional level, so nitrate levels are far lower then when the nitrate/cancer scare first started.
> 
> A whole ham is too large for salt to effectively penetrate into the center before the meat starts to rot. It is considered a standard procedure to use a meat syringe to inject the brine solution into the center of the ham, near the bone. You're injecting into the spots that salt would migrate last if penetrating only from the outside surface. Vein pumping is another related technique for getting salt inside faster.
> 
> ...


I’ve butchered for 50 years and never once used a nitrite/nitrate. 1 pint of salt to a ham, 3 table spoons of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of black pepper, all mixed together. Never lost a ham or shoulder and I’ve cured as many as 40 in a single year. You have to 1) cure at the right time 2) prepare hams and shoulders properly 3) add cure 4) you have to hang them correctly(hock down)


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