Wolfau said:
Hard Luck said:
Care to share the process and recipe?
Looks amazing.
No Probs Wolfau. Very happy to give back something to a great forum.
I am no expert or anywhere near it and am still experimenting and learning. Safety is always a priority when doing this sort of stuff so I urge anyone interested to do their research first. I always never let anyone eat anything like this I have made until I have used myself as a guinea pig for at least 24 hours.
I am an active member of Aussie BBQ forum and highly recommend it to anyone interested in BBQ. I have no affiliation. I'm just interested in all forms of BBQ.
Another great site is the Amazing Ribs website which goes into a lot of the science around the methods.
For this batch I used the basic wet brine in a book called CHARCUTERIE - The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing. I have used this many times before with no ill effects. But remember that this recipe calls for Cure No1 (Pink Salt) which contains Sodium Nitrite which can make you very sick. So follow all recipes closely and handle this stuff with care.
Some people don't Pink Salt it but I am nowhere near taking that step yet.
So onto the recipe from the book, and method I used.
Wet Brine.
1 gallon/4 litres of water
3/4 cup/200 grams of Kosher salt (I've never used Kosher. Just whatever is hanging around in the kitchen. Usually iodised)
1/2 Cup/125 grams sugar
1 and a half ounces/42 grams of Cure No1 (Pink Salt) for every gallon/4 litres of brine. (I use litres)
This piece was just over 3.5 kgs. I started with 4 litres but had to make another 2 litres the next day as I didn't have enough to cover the leg. (bugger)
Heat the brine till just before boiling and all ingredients have dissolved. Let it cool to room temp. Then place in a food safe container with the meat.
Now you need one of those giant arse meat injectors so you can inject the meat with the brine. Inject all over making sure you get to those spots near the bone.
Weigh it down with a plate and let it sit in the brine for a week. I was probably pushing my luck letting pork go in a wet brine for over 2 weeks.
After a week take it out. Give it a good wash and let it sit in fresh water for at least an hour, to get rid of excess salt.
Pat dry and leave in the fridge overnight or at least a few hours.
So now you are ready to smoke it. You can use a number of different bbq's for this but for a large piece like this I prefer to use the Aldi smoker that runs on gas and hickory for the wood.
You need a dual probe thermometer. One for the BBQ temp and one for the meat temp.
For this recipe I used the hot smoking method which means I had BBQ temp at 225F throughout the process. I was aiming for and internal meat temp of about 164F.
This took about 9 hours all up at 225F. I added hickory wood for about the first 4 hours and just let it go after that.
You can use a higher temp and the process takes about 6 hours but I have not tried that yet.
Meathead on Amazing Ribs describes it all here.
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/curing_ham.html
So after what is probably my longest post ever on a forum I'll leave you all salivating with pics of bellies I made into bacon a while back.lol
These were made with a dry cure method and I used charcoal to smoke them with hickory.
Enjoy. And stay safe.
