@janderson Just make sure to soak and rinse after your brine and before the smoke, otherwise your ham will be salty.

@johnsbrewhouse Thanks for fast reply! I did read through that, I just wasn't sure if it was different when using the sweeter than sweet cure since the product page for that said 1.75lb to 1 gallon for a 10% pump. Thanks again for clarifying.

@janderson Go here and you will get some of your answers. You don't have to add the spices, they are not necessary to making ham. It may be a bit not like the ham you get from the store, but you can add the spices when you cook it. Inject to 20% of green weight, the a 50% brine to soak. Here is the link to the ham making page. https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/203/how-to-make-homemade-smoked-ham-recipe

Hopefully you see this in time! I'm curing hams with my high school class. We have the Sweeter than Sweet Cure and Sure Gel. Question 1: Is it going to taste bad without the ham spice? Can we add some spices to it if that's the case? Question 2: if we mix at a 1.75lb cure to 1 gallon water ratio do we inject to 20% of the green weight or 10%? I've read both now as I've been researching and I'm panicking as we are doing this tomorrow morning. I thought I knew what I was doing until I found 2 different answers. Whoops!

How important is the Sure Gel? I know it says optional and somewhat redundant.

If you used the country brown sugar cure than you need to Use 2 lb of cure to each gallon of water for a 10% pump. For a 24 lb ham you should only need 2.4 lb of the solution. Take the remaining and then use that as your cover pickle. If you are not adding sodium erythorbate you will want to hold it 3-4 minimum probably 5-6 better. It is better to start at lower than 180 but you work with what you have.

@Matt-Scoles Which ham cure did you purchase?

I just received all my ingredients that is listed above and injecting today and cooking tomorrow. As I read through here there are conflicting instructions. Do I need to use 1 gallon or 2 for a 24.5 pound ham? I’ve also read instead a overnight hold it’s 3-4 days. I’m cooking on a pellet grill and plan on cooking at 225. The low as it will go is 180. Is that too hot?

Can you enlighten me on what number Excalibur Country Brown Sugar Cure would be for this smoked ham? I was thinking seeing that it is would be hot smoking, that cure#1 would be used?

@Rlane420 Yes it can be

Could the injection process and recipe be used with a pork loin to make Canadian bacon?

If you go to https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/811/additive-conversion-chart you can see the break down on the additives.

So I got everything from you to do my pig leg,and can't wait but what I would like to know is if you have someplace on here that tells oz to tablespoons and things I don't have a scale

@Cabelas90 Thanks, I will purchase some cure accelerator and brine in 50% solution for three days.

@Groucho-Smith I recommend holding for a min of 3 days. We inject to 20% then vac tumble and we still hold for 3 days min. We are also adding sodium erythorbate as a cure accelerator and if we cook any sooner than 3 days we will get uncured spots.

@Groucho-Smith did you add any cure accelerator? @Cabelas90 and @blackbetty61 do more with hams than I do. Country brown does not.come with an accelerator though so your gonna need to hold it in a 50%/strength solution for at least a few days to allow the cure to equalize inside the meat

If I’m using the country brown sugar cure and cold phosphate to inject and brine how long do I brine? 24 hrs or does it need to be longer?

@George-T I've had 12 hour smoke schedule before. Without a commercial smoker, that can change the amount of humidity in the air, you are in for a long smoke with ham. 14 hours is long but not terrible honestly. The only way to speed it up would be to increase the temp or humidity. Towards the end bumping it up even higher probably wont be an issue. Just don't raise it too much or too early or you will cook/dry the outside.

@Austin said in [How To Make Homemade Smoked Ham \- Recipe](/post/3915): > @j-ott > That is hard to say exactly because it greatly depends on your individual smoker, how well it holds an accurate temp, the humidity, etc. The least amount of time I'd plan for is 11 hours total, but you are probably looking at 12 hours, or just a slight bit over. I smoked my first ham yesterday it was about 8 lbs I followed your schedule it took 15 hours to get to 148 I had multiple probes in and around the ham so I trust the temp was right any Ideas why it took so long? holding a steady 190 in the smoker internal only gained 1 degree per hour for the last 3 hours I had a large pan of water in the smoker could the humidity be to high? Anyhow the ham turned out perfect just wonder why so long

@George-T I assume you mean keeping it in a 50% strength solution? If you mean out of the solution not long, it will start to expel water and might even gas out. If you mean in a 50% don't do it more than 8ish days. We are only adding nitrite which is "quick" curing power. For longer cures you need nitrate which breaks down into nitrite over time.

After injecting and soaking over night in cover brine whats the maximum time I can hold before smoking? I just built a large smoker and would like to smoke multiple hams at one time but don't have the fridge space to soak them all at once

@Jonathon that was the plan. This will be my first time doing ham.

@AaronSilves We dont have a chart, are you injecting and holding in a 50% strength solution?

@Jonathon how much hold time, I've got about a 30 lb green ham? Is there a chart?

@AaronSilves Yup, it is just a cure accelerator so if you don't add it you just have to hold it and let the cure have time to work It shouldn't have any effect on taste/texture.

Do you have/need to use the sodium eryothrobate? I thought it was just a cure accelerator like encapsulated citric acid, so I didn't get any. Figured to let it sit for a 24-48 hrs before smoking. Which way is best? Thanks

thank you for your help.

@moffitt7707 You said "I bought the blue ribbon maple bacon seasoning stick" did you buy the snack stick seasoning? That isn't the same type of cure, you should have bought [Blue Ribbon Maple Ham](https://www.waltonsinc.com/blue-ribbon-maple-cure-for-ham) as that is formulated as a ham cure, the stick one is formulated for being ground and formed. I honestly don't even know if it is able to be soluble? Let me know if that is what you did and I will see if I can get some help from our application specialist to convert this. You asked about a chart, did you mean this? https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/700/cure-conversion-chart

Hi Do you have a chart for the pork leg making into ham? I bought a 19 # bone in ham. I bought the blue ribbon maple bacon seasoning stick. It says to add in 1oz of sure cure for the whole bag. I want to do injection to sit for 8 days. I have the ham spice, sodium Erthorbate. Then I would do a salt and brown sugar rub on out side. I would like to try this maple but don't want too mess it up.

@grenier32 Yes, that is me Jon tremblay saying that not me a Walton's Employee!

@Jonathon The Hams look great we ended up smoking 12 hams and 12 slabs of Bacon this weekend. Long weekend but worth it. Quick question. I got the Hams up to between 136-142 internal. I know this is a little short of the 145 but I ran out of propane and it was very late. As long as when we eat the hams we bring it up to 145 we should be ok correct??    

@Jonathon I made a mistake I meant Sure Gel not Sure Cure. I am using the Country Brown Suger Cure. I am not doing it commercially I raise a few pigs every year for myself and my family. This year we raised 6 and everyone wants ham so I decided to bone them out to cure and Smoke. Each Ham is around 9.5 lbs +/-. I am going to mix the following please let me know if you see any problems with my calculations Total Weight= 114lbs 4 Gallons of water 9oz Cold Phosphate 27oz Sure Gel 4lbs Country Brown Suger Cure 1oz California Ham SPice .48oz Sodium Erythorbate Inject 20% or around 3 gallons total Then hold in a 50% solution for 24-48hrs Thanks for the advice and help!! This is the only place I will come to for all my meat processing equipment and seasoning mix!!!

@grenier32 Weigh all of them then add that weight up and calculate the amount. Then inject each one individually so it is pumped to the correct %. But we need to know a few things here. First, why add sure cure? Ham/Bacon Cures already have the cure mixed in to correctly impart a specific amount of ongoing nitrate in PPM. What cure are you using? 2nd, you are doing 12? Are you doing this commercially or do you just have a bunch of friends family who all want hams?

@Jonathon I have 12 fresh boneless hams that I am getting ready to inject, cure, and smoke. My question is do I take the combined weight and divide by 25lbs to calculate my Cold Phosphate and Sure Cure amounts or do I need to take an average weight of a single boneless ham? I am planning on smoking this weekend. Thanks for the help!!!!!!

I have 12 fresh boneless hams that I am getting ready to inject, cure, and smoke. My question is do I take the combined weight and divide by 25lbs to calculate my Cold Phosphate and Sure Cure amounts or do I need to take an average weight of a single boneless ham?

@cu_hunting Oh shoot sorry, I didnt respond to the ham rinse question. People do both, some rinse and some don't. If you don't like a lot of salt I'd say rinse it but if you are looking for that salty flavor go ahead and go right to smokehouse. A good way to rinse is put it in a bucket in a sink and fill the bucket, then turn the water on low and let it fill and drain for 20 minutes. Obviously make sure the bucket isn't blocking the drain so it can all drain out of the sink though. I don't rinse ham buit I do bacon, if that helps

@cu_hunting lol no, thank you though! Buy stuff from Walton's that's it, entire reason Austin set meatgistics up was to help our customers get the most out of their purchases. It has sprawled past what I thought it would be but at its core its still based on helping customers make good products!

@Jonathon do I need rinse or soak the hams in water after it's done with the brine soak? Thank you so much! Do you have a way to tip you guys? I want to show my appreciation for all your help!

@cu_hunting Let it soak for 4-5 days if you didn't include the sodium erythorbate, sorry but the cure needs that amount of time to work since it wasn't accelerated.

Okay I'm mad at myself... I forgot to include the sodium erythorbate in the injection, but I did include it into the cover brine. Not sure if that will help me at all or not? So mad at myself you wouldn't believe it... All this time and prep... Trying to do everything right and I forget something...

Jon thank you for all your help!!! Quick question if I use sodium erythorbate with all the ingredients mentioned, do I let it soak for just 24 hours or can it soak longer? Will it become too salty? Does it need rinsing and soaking in water after the soak? Thank you so much!!! Too bad you don't have a tip jar that I could donate to... You have been an amazing help to me and I greatly appreciate it!!!

@TexLaw Thanks for finding that!

@Jonathon [HERE](https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/data-statistics/tables.html) is that study you referred to. It was a survey done by the CDC in 2015. They found that USA commercial pork was the source of 2 whole cases in the USA from 2011-2015. Bear was tied to 25. @cu_hunting As it turns out, that survey also tied only 2 cases to farm-raised swine.

@Jonathon commercial pork is much safer than home grown pork like my hog that I butchered last Saturday.

@cu_hunting My understanding is that the USDA lowered the requirement of pork to 145 after the # of trichinosis cases from pork fell to an absurdly low level. Now, that isn't going to be of comfort to anyone who does happen to get it but I believe the studies they did found bear to be the biggest offender.

Also you want to cook pork to 160 degrees to prevent Trichinosis... curing smoking doesn't kill the parasite.

Thank you very much!!!! You are awesome! I do have sodium erythorbate, as I bought all ingredients from the first recipe on hoa to make a ham. I have food grade buckets and the liners too, I am all set! Thanks again!

Tim Salois As Paul said overnight is not enough time for whole ham. Without arterial /stich pumping SE will not accelerate the cure since the cure does not have time to penetrate the meat completely.

Okay, ignore everything else. This is going to be a recipe tailored for you based 24 lb ham weight: First, we are going to make your injection, ingredients for that will be: Get 1 gallon of water and mix in 2 oz of your cold phosphate (mix really really well and this ingredient HAS to be first) Use 2 lb of country brown sugar cure to the 1 gallon of water Mix in 0.85 OUNCE of the California Ham Spice to the 1 gallon of water Next you are going to inject to 10%: Your ham(s) weighs 24 lb now, when you are finished injecting they should weigh 26.4 lb as they now have 2.4 lb of the solution mixed in. Then we will make your cover brine: Weigh your remaining solution 1 gallon of water is about 8 lb, 2 lb of cure (other additives negligible) so you have 10 lb but you injected 2.4 lb into your hams so you should have 7.6 lb of solution left. Now, take 7.6 (or whatever your left over actually weighs) and add that amount again of fresh water. This gives you your 50% strength cover brine. How you are going to cover this for 3-4 days I don't know, don't freeze it though. My suggestion would be to get something like a [Stark Butcket Liner](https://www.waltonsinc.com/stark-bucket-liners-for-marinating-brining) and use that to encapsulate the hams and the cover brine but you have to do something here. Just injecting and moving on isn't going to allow the cure to equalize in the meat and to allow the cure time to work. If you had added something like sodium erythorbate you could just hold for 24 hours but even then 3 days is really going to give you a better flavor profile For thermal processing: 1 Hour at 120° with no smoke 2 Hours 140° and begin smoking 4 Hours at 190° until internal temperature reaches 145° Ham doesn't need to be cooked to 160° as it is a whole muscle meat. If you are making a ground and formed ham then it needs to go to 160°. I have no idea why we did 160° in our initial video, I am adding a note to that but leaving the 160° n there as well, it isn't going to hurt anything. If you have any other question before you start please start a new topic as Urgent, that'll get my attention quicker than a normal post will.

@Jonathon Hi Jon, It's crunch time... I have been doing everything I can to find out the best information on how to make hams, bacon etc... for months I have been preparing and to find out now that the information I have now is wrong is really freaking me out. I now have two 25 pound hams on ice in my cooler waiting to be processed because I don't know which recipe to follow. I want them to turn out perfect. I have all the ingredients listed out on the country brown sugar cure. I don't have a cooler or a refrigerator that can hold these hams. My only option is to keep them on ice until I can cure them, or last option is to freeze them. So the recipe called for 2 oz California Ham Spice 0.24 oz Sodium Erythorbate, 2 oz Cold Phosphate for a 24 pound ham and 2 gallons of water with the 2lb of brown sugar cure which was wrong. So it's 2 lb per 1 gallon of water... The final temp changed too from 160 to 145 degrees??? Why the change? I need all the help I can get within the next couple days to get the right recipe down to be able to get the best hams I can get. Thank you!!!

@cu_hunting follow this process https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/801/cured-whole-muscle-meat-105-ham-basics while I fix this one. I'm thinking that something changed because not only the post but also the video says 2 gallons for a 20% pump but now the instructions on the bag/box of country brown says 2 lb to 1 gallon for a 10% pump. There will be an update on this later today

@Jonathon is the recipe wrong then? 2lb cure per 2 gallons water? for the country brown sugar cure... or is it 2lb cure for 1 gallon of water? to inject it... then half strength for cover brine for 24 hours...

@cu_hunting I agree it can be confusing, maybe I need to split the post into 2 different ways to do it, one that would be using the full gallon of water and 1 that would be for a small single ham? Basically, Add 2 lb of cure to 1 gallon of water and inject your ham until it weighs 20% more than it did before you began pumping it. Then weigh the remaining solution that wasn't injected and add that weight in fresh water. This will give you the 50% strength covering solution that the ham will sit in to allow the cure to equalize within in the meat.

Some of the directions and ingredient lists are kind of confusing at times because you use different units of measure. Like for instance for a 10% pump, or use 2lb of brown sugar cure for a 24 lb ham... I think it would be better to list it out per pound, so like 1.33 oz of brown sugar cure per pound of ham or something along those lines. Or is it per gallon of water... I think I am confusing myself. So it's the strength or solution that is consistent and won't vary, but the weight or how much you pump in is the variable and will be a percentage of the green weight of the ham... I think I am answering my own question here... lol Okay but then why does the Excalibur listing say to use 2lb per gallon of water, and your recipe is 2lb per 2 gallons of water... Uuhg I am going to be doing this on Saturday and I need to get this right, it has to be perfect. 2 hams and 2 pork bellies for bacon.