American Country Ham

Meats	Metric	US
ham, bone-in	8 kg	17.6 lb.

Ingredients per 1000g (1 kg) of meat

salt	54 g	3 Tbsp.
Cure #2	10.0 g	2 tsp.
sugar	20.0 g	4 tsp.
pepper	6.0 g	3 tsp.

Instructions

1. Mix salt, Cure #2 and sugar together. Divide into three equal parts. Rub ham on all sides with ⅓ of the mixture. Place ham in refrigerator. Keep it covered with plastic wrap or a cloth to prevent drying. A good idea is to keep it in a zip- loc bag. This prevents the ham from drying. The ham should be kept at around 90% humidity, but the humidity in a refrigerator is only about 40%.
2. After 3 days, rub the ham with another ⅓ mixture and place in a refrigerator.
3. After 10 days remove the ham from the refrigerator and apply the last ⅓ of the mixture. Place ham back in refrigerator.
4. After 40 days (total salting time) remove the ham from the refrigerator and briefly rinse with tap water. Brush off any salt from the surface.
5. Coat the surface of the ham with pepper and stuff the ham into the netting.
6. Keep for 14 days at 40-42° F (4-6° C), 75% humidity.
7. Apply cold smoke (77° F, 25° C) for 24 hours.
8. Ripe (dry and mature) hams for 60 days at 77-86° F, 25-30° C), 65% humidity.

Notes