Hot-Smoked Ham Recipe – Homemade and Smoky
- Type
- Ham
- Level
- Medium
- Rating
- Rate this recipe
Today I show you how you can make a smoked ham yourself. With a moderate effort you will achieve a super tasty result.
Smoked ham is a delicious delicacy. Its unique flavor and tender texture make it a popular choice as an appetizer, on bread, or in a variety of dishes. For this recipe, you’ll need a smoker.
If you want to know everything about making ham + 28 other ham recipes, it’s worth checking out the book.
Here you will find the complete hot smoked ham recipe as a video or to read through.
Have fun and good luck making it!
Table of Contents
Smoked ham – What do you need to make it?
Ingredients per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| pork e.g. neck / leg | 1,000 g | 100 % |
Spices per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| brine | |
| salt | 110.5 g |
| sugar | 20 g |
| Cure #1 | 9.5 g |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| caraway | 2 g |
| garlic granules | 2 g |
| black pepper | 2 g |
| coriander | 1.5 g |
| water | 1 L |
Depending on the desired salt content of the final ham, you will need between 20% and 30% of the meat weight in brine. I recommend starting with 20%.
The equipment to make smoked ham
Injection Needle + Syringe
To inject the brine into the meat (the process ensures that the meat stays juicy), you will need a injection syringe. If you don’t have one yet, you can buy one inexpensively.
Smoker
You need the smoker (e.g. this smoker cabinet) to smoke your ham.
Make smoked ham – Step-By-Step Instructions
Put all the spices with the water in a saucepan and boil the brine once briefly. Leave to infuse for 20-30 minutes and then leave to cool.
When the brine is cold, you can drain it through a sieve so that you don’t have any pieces in the brine. 3
Now inject some of the brine into the ham with a syringe. You can stop as soon as you notice that the brine is running out more and more.
Put the ham with the remaining brine into a resealable bag.
Now squeeze as much air as possible out of the bag. Try not to squeeze the ham too much (otherwise the brine will leak out again). Then you can close the bag.
The ham must now be cured for at least 3 days in the refrigerator (if you have a larger piece of ham, you must cure it longer). Important: Turn the ham every day so that the brine can soak in from all sides and is well distributed.
Now pat the meat dry with a kitchen towel. Then insert a hook into the cured piece of meat. This way you can hang it up better afterwards. Alternatively, you can also tie the ham with kitchen twine and hang it up.
Hang your ham in the smoker and dry it for about 30 minutes at 50 °C (122°F) without smoke.
After 30 minutes, increase the temperature to 75 °C (167 °F) and smoke the ham for about 2 hours.
After 2 hours, your ham probably hasn’t reached core temperature yet. Now you have two options:
option: you continue smoking the ham without smoking or
option: you continue to cook it in the sous vide cooker.
The core temperature is a matter of taste: at 58 °C (136.4 °F) the ham is very soft and juicy, at 62 °C (143.6 °F) it is firm but not yet dry and at 65 °C (149 °F) the ham is dry.
Your ham is ready.😄 Enjoy it.
Frequently asked questions
Is this hot smoking or cold smoking?
Is this hot smoking or cold smoking?
Hot. The ham is cured first, then dried without smoke, and only then smoked at a temperature that cooks it as it smokes, which is why step 10 asks about the core temperature and why the finished ham is ready to eat. Cold smoking is the other family. The smoke stays cool, the meat is not cooked by it, and the ham needs a long maturation of its own before it is ready to eat.
That also explains the smoker in the equipment list. There is no way to get this result without one: the German version of the same recipe says the oven will give you a cooked, cured ham, but not a smoked one. If you do not have a smoker, this is not the recipe to start with.
How long is the shelf life of the smoked ham ?
How long is the shelf life of the smoked ham ?
Your ham will keep in the refrigerator for about a week. The alternative is to vacuum pack the ham in portions. When vacuumed, it should keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks. You can also freeze it. This will increase the shelf life many times over.
Nice simple easy to follow recipe Daniel!
I live on the Tropical Island of Phuket where it is hot all year long, the rainy season is here now and it is perfect weather to start smoking again. I do a lot of cold smoking at night in the rainy season when the temperature goes down to around 26c, I wait until midnight to start the smoker it is much cooler then and no breeze so the smoke goes straight up and doesn’t annoy my neighbours, and can easily
control the heat using frozen water in
plastic bottles if needed. Way too hot today it’s 30c already with 85% humidity in my kitchen and it’s only 8.25am. I’ll find a nice piece of Pork and Brine it so once it’s cool enough I can smoke it. Hot smoking is not too hard to control in the rainy season but when it’s 36c or more at other times a gas smoker like I have is very hard to keep under control. I make my own Cold Smokers and am in the process of making a new one out of stainless steel with brass fittings. I took my original cold smoker back to Australia last year and left it there to use when I go home. I still have to assemble the new one a bit of Silver Soldering to be done and I’m set to go.
Have you made any Hot Calabrese Salami, I’m going to give that a go later when it gets real cold as it is to hot to ferment Salami at the moment.
Thanks for sharing
Barry