the search can't find ham?

Could be that a search term has to be at least four letters. Try searching on "hams" :o

I would brine and bake...or just season and bake. First night carve and eat all ya want, then portion out for breakfast steaks, ham casserole, and of course a nice bone w/ meat on it for split pea and ham. i also would place in the freezer any I wasn't going to use right away.

Am very confused here by what the US meaning of a ham is. (Sorrry Charron, I can't help until I am sure - we do stuff differently down under).

I'm going to sound like a real dummy here (not for the first time :) ).

In the US, is a "ham" just the cut of pork, i.e. like a leg of pork or shoulder for roasting, merely raw?

Or is it cured, smoked etc etc?

I just really don't know. So many recipes I see from the US and other areas call for baking and glazing a "ham".

Here it means a shoulder or leg of pork which has been cured and smoked, ready to carve and eat. With relish (of various types :D )

If anyone has a spare moment, a clarification would be really appreciated.

TIA -DC

Yep thats a raw pork shoulder. Sorry,i should have known that you got unprocessed meat. At this point i would put it in my smoker and turn it into pulled pork or you could do a nice braise/roast in the oven. plenty of meat for enchiladas, sandwiches, tacos and such.

Google themeatman. Lots of great info about beef, maybe he addresses pork.

I suggest you send pm's to BDL, MaryB OR KYHeirloomer. They have all done th ecuring process or know about it, KYH for sure. Or start a new thread that isn't about a bad search and more about what you want. best of luck:peace:

Ham comes from the hind leg, not the shoulder.

You can get a "picnic ham" from the shoulder, though. That's the lower part of the shoulder, below the boston butt. Taken together they're called "whole shoulder."

Ham can certainly be brined after defrosting. In fact, defrosting in brine is a very good way to go. I'm not sure about a long, dry cure. Freezing -- especially the way it's done at home -- creates ice crystals which traumatize the meat at a cellular level. While I think you could do a dry cure without any health issues, you're dealing with a product whose texture was already degraded so ultimate quality would suffer as well. That is, I doubt it would ever firm up quite as well as a never-frozen ham would. This would had have more affect on things like slicing than on flavor though.

That all sounds like I know what I'm talking about -- which is deceptive. At best it's an educated guess. I've never tried to slow cure a previously frozen ham.

My suggestion is put the ham in your brine still fully frozen, defrost in the brine and brine for a couple of days at least. An alternative to brining is injecting. I've never pumped a big ham like the one you have but would like to give it a try with some sort of fruit liqueur based injection.

Rub with either a wet or dry rub, then smoke to a "slice" internal of around 180F in a relatively slow, but not too slow, cook chamber -- say around 225F - 235F. Higher internals are for "pulled pork," and you don't want your ham to fall apart.

BDL

I second Gunnar's suggestion (hey my 3rd eldest brother has the same middle name).

What I envisage ham to be is cured, smoked, moister than but similar to products like proscuitto.

If it is uncooked pork, you could thaw it, cook it, then re-freeze. Have no idea about the curing, sorry. I would not eat grey ham either. Think churning stomach :)

You'll have to careful about defrosting such a monster, couple of days in the fridge at least.

Ah, have faith in yourself, young grasshopper :bounce: