Dry cure skin-off ham?

farmboy236 · Post by **farmboy236** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 17:26

Well an update: Bad luck struck in the form of an incapacitating ice storm. This was the worst ice storm I've seen in 16 years, we had 2 days of frozen rain of which 4/5 inches of ice stuck. Then to top it off we had 2 days of snow that provided a good insulation blanket for the ice. I wasn't able to get to processors for 5 days so my bacon got cured for 10 days, 3 days too many. I had bellies, boneless hams, guanciale and ham ham hocks in the cure. My bacons got so salty that they are inedible, for now. I rinsed and soaked them in cool water for several hours, changing the water everytime it got cloudy until the water stayed clear. Then I soaked them overnight in the clear water, it got a bit cloudy around the bottom by ths am but not too bad. I dryed em, hooked em and hung em to equalize for 8-10 days. I am going to try to see if an extended equlize will help make them less salty then I will go to the smoke with them. Yall wish me luck! I am OK on everything else and will smoke the boneless hams tomorrow. I've got the guanciales hanging in the attic for the next 30-60 days. I've got 2 more weeks for the culetellos to cure then I will equalize them a day or 2 and sew them into bladders.

Post by **redzed** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 16:49

Too bad about the weather farmboy, something we just can't control.

Hope you are smoking the hams today. Please post some pics!

I also hope that you will keep us updated on the culatello. I also started a couple and they are curing in the fridge right now. It's my first crack at this type of ham, so maybe we could compare notes.

redzed