by bigJ » Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:53 pm
I have now got two hams curing one on the bone in the previously discuss cure and the other i have tunnel boned and have had a stab at a speck style ham.
Thought it was interesting to note that the weight of the bone was closer to 10% of the weight of the leg not the 20% as i've seen advised elsewhere on the forum (the trimmed, bonein ham weighed 8.2 kg (knukle end of bone removed(179g)), the bone i removed from the other ham weighed 859g, which implies the bone left in the ham weighed 680g or 8.3%of the total weight). I know different size pigs will produce different ratios and this was a big pig (83kg dead weight if you wanted to know) but i thought this worthy of note especially if calculating brine amounts etc. as it could lead to too little cure. Hope that helps someone, or if i made a mistake somewhere i'm sure someone will let me know.
Just tried the first of the belly bacon, just a basic dry cure but excellent non the less, especially as i haven't had any for a while since i ran out of the last lot made from last years pigs.