Make pork loin ham yourself- mildly smoked and super tasty

In this post I’ll show you how to make pork loin ham yourself. It is super easy to make.

My recipe is pretty puristic. However the taste is extraordinary. The ham is dry cured and then cold smoked. I smoked it 2 times, 12 hours each.

A pork loin ham is an excellent alternation to the classic dry cured ham. Its low-fat content and tenderness make it something special.

You want to know more about ham? No problem, I have written down all my knowledge in my ham book. You can have a look at the book “Make Dry-Cured & Cooked Ham Easily At Home (Incl. 28 Recipes)” here.

In this post you’ll can find the complete pork loin ham recipe as a video or to read through.

Have fun and good luck making it yourself!

Making your own pork loin ham – What do you need?

Ingredients per 1 kg 

• 100% pork loin (1000g)

Spices per 1 kg 

• 27.5 g salt
• 2.5 g cure #1
• 3 g black pepper
• 2 g sugar mixture (50/50 dextrose / normal sugar)

The sugar mixture gives the best results for me. If you don’t have dextrose, you can just use regular sugar.

Equipment for making pork loin ham

Smoker

You need the smoker to smoke your pork loin ham. 

Cold Smoke Generator and smoking flour 

The cold smoke generator burns for about 12 hours. This saves you to constantly refill the smoking flour. 

Make pork loin ham yourself- Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Remove any tendons, fibers and silverskins from the meat. Make sure there are no large incisions or “pockets” in the meat. This is because the pockets could lead to mold.

2. Weigh your beef. The weight is used to calculate how much salt and cure you need in the next step.

3. Weigh out all the ingredients. To do this you multiplicate the weight of your meat with the spices in my recipe. If your meat has exactly 1000g = 1 kg you can just take them as they are. If you want to make a larger piece, let’s say 1.5 kg you multiplicate the spices with 1.5. Same applies for smaller meat pieces.

4. Mix the salt and spices together and rub them evenly on all sides of the piece of meat.

5. Place the pork with the remaining salt and spices in a bag and vacuum seal. It is important to include all the salt and spices you weighed out before.

6. Put the vacuumed pork loin in the refrigerator for the minimum curing time (1.5 days / cm of meat thickness). Turn the bag over occasionally.

7. After the curing time you can take the meat out of the bag and rinse off the seasonings with cold water.

8. Pat the meat dry with a kitchen towel. 

9. Hang the meat in a dark place to dry for “½ curing time” days. It should ideally be around 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 °F) and 75% humidity.

10. After the meat is initially dried out a bit you can hang it in the smoker and cold smoke it. I did 2 runs here. One run means 12 hours of smoke and 12 hours of no smoke. The temperature should ideally be between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius (59 – 68 °F).

11. Your pork loin ham is ready😄. You could enjoy it directly, but it will still be very soft. Therefore I recommend you to let the meat continue to mature for at least 2 weeks or longer (Like in Step 9). Just make sure it does not become too dry and that the texture is firm to your liking.

What is the shelf life of pork loin ham?

Thanks to smoking, your pork loin ham will keep longer. 

To prevent the ham from drying out or losing its flavor, it’s best to pack it in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

In general, I would also recommend using it up within 7 days when sliced. This should not be a problem because of the delicious taste ;).

Packed in one piece, you can store it in a cool place for several months.