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Ham is the upper portion of a pig’s hind leg, it will usually be in the range of 16 inches long and around 12 inches wide at the widest point and its weight will vary pretty dramatically. To cook it safely at low temperatures it needs to be cured first and because of the size of the ham injecting it is a better choice than pickling or brining to make sure the cure is evenly distributed.

14 lb Uncured Ham
1 Bag of Country Brown Sugar Cure
1 lb of California Ham Spice

Walton’s Automatic Syringe Injector
Versanet
Auto-Load Hog Ring Pliers

To figure out how much cure and water you will need you will first need to weigh your ham. This ham weighs 14 lb which is known as its green weight. Country Brown Sugar Cure calls for 2 lb of cure to be mixed with 1 gallon of water for a 10% pump. For California ham spice use .05lb per gallon of water. This means that we want to use the appropriate amount of cure and water and then pump 10% of the “green weight” into the ham, so a 14 lb ham will be 15.4 lb after it has been pumped.

It is very important to use water that has low microbial levels and low to no chlorine, buying distilled water from your grocery store is a good way to ensure you will not have any issues from the water. If you are using tap water leave it in an uncovered container in a cooler overnight to let any of the gas escape the water.

We recommend a 14 point injection for a ham, starting at the thinner side inject near the end once on each side of the bone and then move up the ham making 4 more injections in a straight line until you reach the thicker end. Once you reached the thicker end, which should be your 6th injection, make 8 more evenly spaced injections around the end of the ham in a clockwise direction.

Then we will use the remaining cure solution to cover our ham while we let it sit in the cooler overnight if you used a cure with sodium erythorbate or added it yourself and 3-4 days if you did not. We want this to be a 50% strength solution so our options are, either us the cure at the rate of 1 lb per gallon of water or we can weigh what we have left over from our injection and add whatever it weighs in water so the cure would now be at a 50% strength solution.

Next, it needs to be stuffed into a casing like Versanet so that it can then hung in the smokehouse. You can choose to tie this Ham or use Ham Tubing, we like versanet as it is a plastic product that releases easily from the ham after the smoking process.

1 Hour at 120° with no smoke
2 Hours 140° and begin smoking
4 Hours at 190° until internal temperature reaches 145°

Then hold this at room temperature for 1-2 hours before moving to the refrigerator or vacuum packing it.

Now we have a beautiful homemade smoked ham that is going to taste at least as good as anything bought in the store!

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Generally, Bacon is the Belly of a Pig that has been cured and smoked. Bacon is cured using nitrites and for commercial processors, the USDA has limited the amount of ingoing nitrates to 200 parts per million for dry rubbed bacon and 120 ppm for pickled or injected bacon.

1 Pork Belly
1 Bag of Dry Rub Bacon

Vacuum Sealer (Optional)

Dry Rubbed Bacon is the classic way to make bacon. In this process, the outside of the belly is coated in a bacon cure and we rely upon osmosis to bring the cure to the center of the meat and ensure that the entire belly is cured. We normally coat all sides of the bacon but the fat cap generally will not allow the cure to pass through so this is more of a taste thing than a requirement.

After the belly has been rubbed it should be placed in a cooler for 5-7 days to allow the cure to penetrate fully. Some people prefer turning the belly over every day but this is not truly necessary since as we said before, the fat cap will not pass the cure through but if you want to feel free to flip it daily. Place the belly in a large vacuum seal bag and seal it if you want, you can also wrap it tightly in plastic wrap or just put it in an airtight container. The bacon is going to excrete some water during this portion, this isn’t anything to worry about.

Once the 5-7 days have passed you need to rinse it before you smoke it, skip this step at your own peril as without rinsing it you are going to get a very salty bacon. I like to let fresh water run through a meat lug for 20 minutes but if you want to save on water you can fill up a lug, let it sit for 20 minutes and then dump that water, refill it with clean water and let it sit for another 20 minutes. If you skip the rinsing process you will end up with bacon that is too salty to be enjoyable. Even if you like salty bacon you should still rinse it, even if you only rinse it for 10 minutes.

Now, go ahead and hang it on your 9" bacon hanger, making sure to leave a few inches above the tines to secure the belly and make sure it doesn’t rip off. Now it’s time to fire up your smoker and cook it. To ensure that you have a safe product you should cook it until it is 138° internal temperature.

Stage 1 - 120° for an hour with no smoke
Stage 2 - 135° for an hour with smoke
Stage 3 - 150° for an hour with smoke
Stage 4 - 165° for an hour with smoke
Stage 5 - 180° with no smoke until internal temperature reaches 138°

Once the Bacon has reached 138° remove it from your smoker and put the bacon in an ice bath for 20 minutes to stop the cooking process. Let the bacon cool for 1-2 hours at room temperature before moving it to the fridge or freezer for packaging or slicing.

When done right homemade bacon can be a delicious addition to any meal or even a meal on its own. Being able to make your own homemade bacon is a good way to learn the smoking and curing process as it is fairly easy to do and at the end, you have a large amount of delicious, homemade bacon!

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Cured Turkey is a turkey that has either been brined in a solution that contains nitrites or has had a solution containing nitrites injected into it. The curing process allows for lower smoking temperatures as the curing agent will help to retard the growth of bacteria and will impart a slight ham-like flavor to the meat, as well as keeping the meat from drying out as easily.

24 lb Turkey (figure 1/2 hour of smoking per lb of meat)
1 Bag of Walton’s Complete Turkey Cure
Sodium Phosphate
Rosemary Basil & Thyme
1 Stick of Butter

Walton’s Automatic Syringe Injector
Versanet
Auto-Load Hog Ring Pliers
Stark Bucket Liner
Food Storage Container

The first thing to do is to create your injection solution, and the first step of that is to figure out how much water you need to use. Walton’s Complete Turkey Cure requires 1.49 lb of seasoning to 1 gallon of water for a 10% pump. This means that if your turkey weighs 24 lb (like ours) we want to inject 10% of that weight into the turkey, so 2.4 lb. Since 1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 lb this would technically be enough to inject more than 80 lb of turkey, so you obviously don’t need the entire gallon for injection purposes. However, we still recommend you make the entire gallon, as you can use the remaining amount for the base of your 50% cover solution to hold the product overnight.

It is very important to use water that has low microbial levels and low to no chlorine, buying distilled water from your grocery store is a good way to ensure you will not have any issues from the water. If you are using tap water leave it in an uncovered container in a cooler overnight to let any of the gas escape the water.

Fully dissolve the Sodium Phosphate in 1 gallon of water. You want to figure the amount of phosphate by the # of lb your (meat is) (injection is able to do). So, you would use 4 oz of Sodium Phosphate for 25 lb of meat, so, divide 4/25 and that gives you the # of oz per lb of meat, then multiply that number by the lb of meat you have and that is the amount of Sodium Phosphate you need. IMPORTANT Dissolve your sodium phosphate 1st, before any other ingredients and make sure it is fully dissolved.

Mix in 1.49 lb of Walton’s Complete Turkey Cure into your injection solution. Keep mixing until you are certain all of it has been dissolved and you don’t have anything at the bottom.

You want to inject 10% of the weight of your turkey with the solution. Putting your turkey in a Poly Pan or Meat Lug will make this much easier and easier to clean up. You can either weigh your turkey as you are injecting it or, if it is easier you can weigh your solution as you inject.

You will want to inject the bulk of your solution into the breast meat, but also inject some into the drumsticks.

Mix Rosemary Basil & Thyme with a stick of softened butter. Separate the skin from the breast meat by slowly sliding your hand between the meat and skin. Once you begin this process it is fairly simple but be careful not to tear the skin. Rub the mixture of butter and seasoning underneath the skin of the breast and then on the outside of the skin and the legs.

Then we will use the remaining cure solution to cover our ham while we let it sit in the cooler overnight. We want this to be a 50% strength solution so our options are, either use the cure at the rate of 1 lb per gallon of water or we can weigh what we have leftover from our injection and add whatever it weighs in water so the cure would now be at a 50% strength solution.

Next, it needs to be stuffed into a casing like Versanet so that it can then hung in the smokehouse. We like versanet as it is a plastic product that releases easily from the turkey after the smoking process and leaves a very nice checkered pattern on your turkey.

1 Hour at 150° with no smoke or humidity
1 Hour 160° and begin smoking and adding humidity
175° until internal temperature reaches 165° (Figure 1/2 hour for each lb of turkey)

Serve hot or let it cool for 1 hour at room temperature before moving it to the fridge for holding overnight before vacuum packing.

Now we have a beautiful homemade smoked turkey that is going to taste at least as good as anything bought in the store!

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Curing Large Cuts of meat can be a challenge, as no matter how you do it you are going to have more concerns about even distribution of the cure. This is why when curing larger cuts of meat an injection process is generally recommended. If you try to brine or pickle something the size of a ham you could run into an issue where the cure is going to gas out. You also have the issue of not being able to control exactly how much of the cure and seasoning gets into the meat.

Gassing out happens when the cure converts to gas and escapes the water before it is able to fully penetrate the meat. The problem with trying to cure larger cuts like a ham with just a pickle or brine is that you are relying solely on osmosis so the skin and fat need to allow the sale, seasoning, and nitrite to pass through them to the center of the ham.

Injecting can help you with both of these issues. First, injecting can get your cure deeply and evenly distributed in the meat right away so you aren’t wasting time waiting for the cure to penetrate the meat. This means that the cure is not converting to gas and escaping the brine solution as we are waiting for our meat to cure. It also allows us to be hyper-accurate with the amount of solution that we are getting into our meat. If we need a 10% pump and we have a 20 lb ham we know that if we pump the ham until it weighs 22 lb then we will have the exact amount of cure required.

Even if you inject, you will still need to hold the product overnight and cover it in a 50% solution to allow the cure to equalize in the meat. The best way to create a 50% strength solution is to measure the amount of solution you have left over and add that much weight in water to it. Or you could follow the initial mixing instructions and just add twice as much water as is recommended.

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Brining and Pickling are terms that are often used interchangeably. Both terms refer to the practice of soaking a whole muscle cut of meat in a solution that contains salt, spices and a cure or curing agent. These methods rely on osmosis to get the solution to penetrate the cellular structure of the meat.

Injecting is the act of taking a water-soluble solution (one that will fully dissolve in water) and inject that directly into a food item that you plan on cooking. There are many different types of injectors used in meat processing, from small syringe-like injectors up to large-scale commercial equipment. You can inject cures, marinades or additives directly into your meat.

This is the traditional, or old world way of curing meat. Some will argue that it imparts a superior flavor and that the cure is more evenly distributed throughout the meat. You can also use particles that are too large to flow through an injector when brining, the particle still will not go into the meat but some of the flavors will.

By injecting your solution directly into the meat you are greatly speeding up the process. A normal cure will penetrate at a rate of about 1 inch per day, so you while you might be waiting 5-7 days for a ham to be ready when brining you are ready to smoke or cook just hours after injecting.

Multi-Needle Injectors - These are machines that will inject a solution, sometimes a cure, through many needles deep into the muscle. These can be large commercials machines like the Promarks MSK-195 Brine Injector or a simple attachment to a Stainless Steel Injector Unit

Vacuum Tumbling - A large-scale commercial operation will often inject a solution with a Multi-Needle Injector and then vacuum tumble it for a short period of time and then go directly to the smokehouse. This takes the cure time for a large ham from 5-7 days down to a few short hours.

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Cured whole muscle meats are any whole muscle cut of meat that you are going to cure and cook. Popular examples of this would be Bacon and Hams. Generally, these are larger thicker cuts of meat that we want to cook slowly so curing allows us to make sure the meat stays safe through the cooking process and we sometimes need to use different methods to effectively apply the cure.

When curing bacon you can inject the cure directly into the belly or rub the outside of the belly with a cure and allow osmosis to bring to the cure to the center of the meat. Since bellies are generally a thinner cut of meat either of these methods, as well as vacuum tumbling, works perfectly fine.

When we start talking about thicker cuts of meat, like a ham, we need to either change the cure we are going to be using or change the method of introducing the cure. Dry rubbing a thick cut like this with a normal cure is going to cause problems as the cure might lose it’s effectiveness before it fully penetrates the meat, for this reason, we always prefer to inject large whole muscle meats with the cure solution and then follow that up with vacuum tumbling or brining in a 50% strength solution.

The meat must then be held to allow the cure to work in the meat. If you are using a traditional cure that contains Nitrites and no additives then you will hold it for 5-7 days after injecting, or if you are using a cure accelerator you need to hold it overnight or if you are vacuum tumbling you can go almost directly to the smokehouse.

Since these cuts have been cured with Nitrates or Nitrites they can be slow smoked and since the cuts are so thick cooking times can be extreme. It is not uncommon for hams to take over 12 hours to be fully cooked.

Cured and fully cooked meats still need to be stored in the refrigerator, for the longest shelf life they should be vacuum packed first.