Pulled ham - second time of making.

[curious aardvark]

This is great stuff - all kudos to bear for bringing it to my attention :-)

Started with three shoulder joints. Probably 4-5 lb each (can't remember exactly).

They've been in my sweetcure for 2-3 weeks last couple weeks just waiting for weather and freetime to coincide. Which was yesterday
This is one reason I mostly use a cure salt that has both nitrite and nitrate in it. Means there is no critical time to remove from fridge - you can leave it months if you like - though that has interesting side effects, a few weeks though is no problem at all.
I deliberately used a low salt cure and rub so that between the two there would be enough salt and not way to much. With a standard bacon or ham cure you would end up with too much salt in the final product.

This would be the perfect project for the salt free Mad Hunky GP rub though
(come on I must be on commissiojn by now )

Cure rinsed off and ready for seasoning.



Don't have enough MH left for three - so made up a slightly modified batch of my chinese rub instead. Added 1 tsp each of coriander and paprika to original recipe. Made a double batch.
Light rub of ketchup and then liberal application of rub. Both sides.



Ready for the smoker



I put the probes in at the start. Rich doesn't - I do, mind you given that this is cured - there's no microbial issue anyway. But if it hadn't been cured, I'd have done it the same way

Once rubbed these went straight into the smoker which was already cruising at somewhere between 250-300. And that's as precise as I think it's necessary to be
Used combination of bay and lilac wood. Because that was what was on hand.

Couple hours in and looking good. Temps between the top and bottom trays surprisingly well matched. Only swapped places once through the whole cook.



At this point I started thinking about dinner. Which was Pork and stilton sausage (new recipe). Stewing beef marinaded and treated with meat tenderiser powder, my burgers. Mini pittas with sundried tomatos, cheese, sweet pepper and garlic and some corn on the cob done walking dudes way. Potato salad and garlic bread.
No pictures of any of this as I was cooking and watching telly at the same time

Pork went into foil before or just after dinner (can't remember) at 165 - bout 10 minutes between the trays reaching temp. Plenty natural juices in both trays so did not add any other liquid.
Hit 195 at around 23:00 - stalled for a bit, or the temps simply weren't high enough with me buggering about grilling dinner over the coals - went in 15:30 so total cook time of 7.5 hours.

Started pulling at around midnight - when internal temp hit 150 (asbestos fingers)
All three were very easy to pull (and eat)







Defatted Juices went into saucepan with lots of redcurrnt jelly, some balsamic vinegar and squirt of ketchup. Reduced to about half volume.



And mixed back into the pork. Hot damn this stuff is tasty



This is not out of focus - the camera was drooling


I pack my pp into smallish foil trays. Quicker and easier than vac pouches and seems to keep at least as well.







I get between 11-12 ounces per container. Which is enough for two serious pulled ham sarnies




Ended up with 13 containers - just under 10lb of pulled ham.
Should keep me going for a while

[PitRow]

Holy crap, those sandwiches are making some serious drool in my mouth!

[SixPack]

Nice!...thats some good looking pulled ham.
Will have to try that for sure.

[BIGGLOPEZ]

Great looking ham,

[HawgHeaven]

CA, you got me at "Defatted Juices went into saucepan with lots of redcurrnt jelly, some balsamic vinegar and squirt of ketchup. Reduced to about half volume."

Jeezus man, Arrrggghhh!!!

[Bearcarver]

That looks freakin' AWESOME, CA !!!!!---------

You know for a fact that I'd be all over that stuff!!!!!

I generally probe my cured meats when I put them in the smoker, but wait a few hours on my non-cured hunks. Just the way I learned.


Bear

[dales133]

That looks fantastic mate ill have to try this some time.
Btw how did you find the bay wood I've got a bit seasoning at the moment

[Richtee]

Heh... I guess at some point I should get you a bag on the No Salt just so you can play around :{)

I have been doin' the pulled ham for a while, and it IS excellent, and a neat change from plain PP. Looks great man!

[Fishawn]

Gotta try this sometime & it looks/sounds outstanding with that sauce in it

[Bassman]

Good looking stuff, Alex. Damn well made me drool over that sandwich.

[curious aardvark]

That looks fantastic mate ill have to try this some time.
Btw how did you find the bay wood I've got a bit seasoning at the moment

it comes from the 20ft bay tree in the garden :–)
had a serious pruning last year. same deal with the lilac wood.

cheers for points and comments

i have tried the salt free mh rich.
thought it needed salt
but for something like this, done with a regular strength salt cure, would be ideal and if you were to use TQ I would think it would be essential to use a no-salt rub for the cook

[dales133]

I've got some decent cuttings of some 8 year old bay trees , biggest pieces are about 80 mm round.
Also got some native pepper tree trunks n branches, can't wait to try this on some beef

[curious aardvark]

pepper tree should be interesting.
Though not sure if you'll get the same sort of effect you get with bay trees.

The essential oils permeate every part of a bay tree - presumably it's some form of insect repellant. So the smoke from the wood does smell the same as the leaves.

Is it the fruit of the pepper tree that is used or the leaves ?

[dales133]

Well it grows long vine like pepper clusters, it's verry closely relAted to its more famous Indonesian cousin.
The leaves are almost furn like and the barks leathery and green, was gona try a smoke with 20% pepper 40 percent hickory and 40 pear.
In my mind this should be a pretty good combo for beef

[curious aardvark]

go for it :-)