Ham Questions

[Smokin in Korea]

I am contemplating making a bone in leg Ham with either a wet brine or dry cure with a Maple Sugar cure I got from Butchers and Packers in the US and the ingredients on the packet read as follows.

2lb Bag
Salt, Cane and Maple Sugars Dextrose Sodium Nitrite (0.75%) with not more than 2% propylene glycol.
Directions:
Use 2lbs Cure to 100lbs of meat or 2lbs cure per gallon of pickle for 10% pump.

But I have the following questions.

1) I have heard the term 10 or 20% pump
Does this mean I inject 10 to 20% of the total volume of the Brine into the leg. (Depending on leg weight also)

2) Is my understanding correct that I should use 2grams of cure per 100gram meat? (Converted into metric)

3) Is this a correct cure to use and if so what sort of cure time should I use per 1kg of leg.

4) Any advice and or suggestions would be appreciated.

5) Also any recipes for ham making would be great as well

[Smokin in Korea]

I have used the above cure at a ratio of 2 grams per 100 grams of meat(dry cure) for bacon hocks and whilst they wern't as moist or fell apart like smoked hock meat they did come out like Ham with a very good taste.

[Oddley]

The pump weight of a pickle at 10% is for example:

If you had 100lb of meat and wanted to pump it at 10% the pickle weight you would pump it with would be:

Pickle weight = (Percent * Meat Weight) / 100

Pickle weight = (10 * 100)/100 = 10lbs

So you would pump your 100 lb of meat with 10 lb of pickle.

[Smokin in Korea]

Thanks Oddley,
I understand your explanation but I am still a little confused.
Does these mean I pump at the rate you mentioned and still put the meat in a brine as well?

[dougal]

I am contemplating making a bone in leg Ham with either a wet brine or dry cure with a Maple Sugar cure ...
I have heard the term 10 or 20% pump
Does this mean I inject 10 to 20% of the total volume of the Brine into the leg. (Depending on leg weight also)

I've never injected a ham - so this is theoretical!
Imagine you have a 10kg ham. For "10%" pump" you'd inject 1kg of curing brine. For 20% 2kg.
It relates the amount injected to the starting meat weight.

For simple immersion curing, you might expect that the meat might take up 10% of its own weight from the brine. To get more weight of water in there you have to inject it. And (I suspect) use phosphates or such to get it to stay rather than dripping out.
Maybe that's the function of the Glycol? (That's antifreeze!)
Injecting gets the cure in place fast. Immersion curing of thick bone-in hams risks spoilage next to the bone before the cure can penetrate that far.
With injecting, the curing time is dramatically reduced, because with lots of injection points the cure has only short distances to diffuse.
i'm surprised there's no Ascorbate/Vitamin C as a cure accelerator. Without that, you'd be relying on the natural bacterial breakdown of the Nitrite to get the pinking and hamminess. Having some of the sugar as Dextrose is something I have taken as a sign of 'feeding the bacteria', rather than being just for sweetening.

There are links on site to the meat inspectors calculation handbook, which sets out many calculations - but do carefully check the assumptions against your plans - and beware that when they say "10% pump" (or somesuch) in their calculations you *must* use the *proportion* 0.1 and NOT the percentage 10
However the Nitrite section should be helpful to you, setting out their limits.

You can calculate the amount of Nitrite that you pump in. You cannot calculate the amount that might drip out. (This matters if you go beyond 8 or 10% without phosphate or the like).
Calculation for injection followed by immersion is NOT covered in the handbook.


I rather like the suggestions of Jane Grigson in her "Charcuterie" for some hams - firstly of boning out the femur while leaving the hock as a handle - making curing and carving less problematic. And also of hanging the (part-boned) ham for a day or two, hock uppermost, (and even beating it occasionally or squeezing it) to try and drain everything possible out of the ham before starting the cure. (She uses rubbing and immersion, but injecting was not in the repertoire of the French provincial butchers whose techniques she recorded.)

[Smokin in Korea]

Thanks for your informative reply Dougal, I am still trying to come to terms with my new found hobby, I have ordered the book you mention but I will not pick it up until September when I head back home for a break.
I would still like to do a leg ham but perhaps I am better off using the immersion and rub method as per Lane Grigsons recipe.
Do you know if her recipe is on the forum anywhere?
Also I have more cures in addition to the Maple cure I mentioned and would appreciate if you could advise which is the best one to use.
Mortons tender quick
Mortons Sugar Cure
Butchers and Packers Cure with Sugar

I did use the Tender quick to try and make a Ham as per Len Poli's recipe for American boiled ham but it came out as dry as shoe lether. Great for mountain climbing over here though LOL.
any Tips/Tricks or recipes would be appreciated.

[Oddley]

Simply put, you pump so that the meat cures from the inside and you then cover with pickle so that the meat cures from the inside and outside making for a quicker cure. The Pickle on the outside will also inhibit or kill most surface bacteria if the pickle is formulated right and the brine concentration of salt is above 10%.

I can only give you times for curing from experience, so for a large bone in ham that is pumped could take from about 5-7 days.

[Smokin in Korea]

Cheers Oddley,
Am I correct in assuming Brine and Pickle is the same?

[dougal]

Jane Grigson's Charcuterie is full of traditional recipes and descriptions.
Over the weekend, I'll put a couple of her recipes up, though as a slow typist, it'll be filtered through me!

She uses saltpetre exclusively. (Traditional...)
And while I can point out that the quantity she advises *is* excessive, I'd be delighted for others, Oddley escpecially, to chip in with suggestions as to how the recipes might be updated, and how commercial cure mixes might be used.
I'll put them in the curing section.


Regarding inject plus immerse.
If you pump up the meat's weight by 10% with brine, and then immerse it in the exact same brine, the result should be pretty much exactly as with the 10% pump.
Its then just a matter of giving it long enough for the cure to spread from the multiple injection sites, and the Nitrite to do its magic.
Seven days sounds perfectly reasonable.
If you left the whole ham immersed for longer than that, say 28 days, it'd become sensible to do a calculation based on equilibrium conditions.
I've got a feeling that commercial injection curing might produce a finished ham in as little as 24 hours - perhaps Pokerpete might comment on that one...

[dougal]

Cheers Oddley,
Am I correct in assuming Brine and Pickle is the same?

I think they are being used synomously. It gets complicated when different solutions for pumping and immersiona are used...

[Smokin in Korea]

OK,
I have had my calculator out and have come up with the following scenario and would appreciate if you could check my calcs based on using the Maple cure at the start of my thread.

Meat 12,5lbs (5.67kg)
Cure 0.5lbs (226 grams)
Water 0.25 Gallon (1.13 ltr)

I would then mix the cure with the water and inject the meat with this pickle/Brine?
Once I do this would I then put the meat into a plastic back and put into the fridge for 5-7 days?
Or would I then need to put it into a Pickle/Brine solution and into the fridge?

[Oddley]

They have slightly different definitions but essentially mean the same.

If the dry cure mix is dissolved in water, it is called a brine
or pickle.

http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare ... 994web.pdf

You might find the above .pdf very useful for information on curing.

[Smokin in Korea]

Thanks Oddley,
Looks like good reading.

[Oddley]

Smokin in Korea

I Gallon US = 8.337 lbs at 2 lb cure = 23.9894 %

for 1.13 litre of water you will need 271 gm or 9.6 oz

Amounts to use

(2 pints Imperial) or (2.39 pints US) or (1.13 ltr) Water
(9.6 oz) or (271 gm) Cure

This will give at 10% pump about 145 ppm Nitrite

[Smokin in Korea]

Thanks Oddley,
I used the wrong conversion table for converting Gallons to litres so it should of read 946ml to 226 grams of cure.

Ok,
I think I am getting there, am I correct in now assuming that once I have made up the Brine/Pickle I then pump this into a 5.67kg leg of Pork.
I could then put it straifgt into a plastic bag and into the fridge or put it into a Brine/ pickle solution made up in the same concentration ensuring the meat is fully covered and then into the fridge?

Please excuse my ongoing questions.