Wild Hog Ham
Perfectly cured, savory wild hog ham. Prepare to never want to grind your wild hog meat again!
Equipment
- Pellet Smoker or Smokehouse
- Stock Pot
- Plastic Turkey Oven Bags
Ingredients
- 1 deboned, cleaned wild hog hind leg
- 1 gallon water
- 2/3 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1/4 cup pickling spices
- 4 tsp pink curing salt
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 pack powdered gelatin
Instructions
- Carefully and cleanly remove the femur from the hindquarter. Then, looking at the now-deboned meat layed out on your cutting board, remove any arteries, glands, connective tissues, and excess fat (a little remaining is ok). Basically, you want to see almost exclusively lean meat by the time you're done.
- Heat water after adding salt, curing salt, sugar, pickling spices and simmer until all salt and sugar is dissolved. Allow to cool to room temperature.
- Place meat in a large plastic turkey oven bag, and then add all of the brine solution to the bag also. Remove air from the bag, twist the top, and then clip the twist with a potato chip clip. Place the bag in some sort of plastic tub to protect against any possible leaks during curing process, and keep refrigerated for ten days.
- After ten days, remove meat from brine and spray off meat thoroughly. Pat dry on a cutting board, and sprinkle one bag of powdered gelatin to what will be the interior of the ham (where you removed the femur). This will promote adhesion and act like a glue that will help keep the various muscle groups sticking together into a nice finished product.
- Tie up with butchers twine and smoke in a smoke house or with a pellet smoker for 10 hours over mesquite. Starting temperature should be around 160F, with temps increasing by about 15 degrees per hour up to 260 degrees, then kept there until internal temperature reads 155F.
- Remove ham from smoker, immediately immerse ham in ice bath for 20 minutes to stop the cooking process, pat dry, and either rest for 24 hours or start slicing!