Hola, I'm a new member (just today actually) and I'm trying to get some info from the expertise that is floating around on the forum. In short, I'm attempting a cider cured ham from The River Cottage Meat Cookbook on a 20 lb pork leg from an organic, grain-fed, free range pork. I'm crossing my fingers. The interweb has been unhelpful in wet brining of pork --most recipes I find deal with injection methods with short cure times of 3-10 days. I'm not interested in treating my damn good looking pork leg like a heroin junky. The recipe from the River Cottage Cookbook is unique so far in that it's a traditional wet brined ham that soaks for around 2 days / pound. It's going to brine in my fridge for the start (around 4C). Though some information I've seen on the web says that if it drops around or below this then the brine doesn't work. I live on a 4th floor apartment complex with a covered porch that is sitting around 8-9C during the day. In a week or so I'll transfer it outside (it's going to be in a coleman cooler) to sit out there once it hits a solid constant 4-5 C outside. The brine, so far, provided it covers the ham which I'll find out in a few hours once it's cooled: 2 L water 4 L pure unconcentrated apple juice (I'm going 2 L apple juice 2 L apple cider actually) 1 L honey-crisp apple hard cider (8% alc) 2 kg non-iodized pickling salt 2 kg brown sugar 30ish juniper berries 10 bay leaves, crushed handful of black peppercorns It calls for saltpetre (optional) but I have absolutly no idea where to find it in Vancouver. I've tried contacted Oyama sausages (sellers of damn fine cured products) but the Big Boss is out so they weren't able to direct me where I could buy them or if I could score the 30g or so I need off of them. If someone knows where I can find it I'll happily add it to my brine. It's not essential, but I'd rather have a pinkish ham. Total cost of ingredients is around $130 canadian (which is surprisingly around $130 american, go loonie!). Hopefully it works out as I'm a poor starving grad student who shouldn't be spending money on things like this. Does that seem right? Too strong? To weak? Should I inject some down the bone as a 20 pound ham is rather large to ensure some solution deep in the ham? Has anyone attempted this? Any tips? The plan is to cure for 30-40 days and then wrap it in cheesecloth, then put it in a coarse burlap bag, and in it's cage of chickenwire I made to hang it from my clothesline. No sun really hits my porch right now and it seems to be a very good temperature here in Vancouver to air-dry stuff. Mid-late november should be 2-3 C out there, with a good breeze, and no bugs. The cage is to keep away birds and such. I'll post pictures sometime later tonight or tomorrow, as well as the brining solution as it gets updated. The plan is to keep you posted and let you know how it turns out, and what crazy party it eventually gets eaten at (and how). Advice is more than welcome, I've never attempted anything like this before --though I've cured and smoked my own bacon before. cheers, -mat edit -> do I need to trim fat? Leave the rind on? edit -> had my salt proportion wrong, was 3kg, is 2kg in the actual brine. edit -> The joys of living a block from a good butcher. He turned my ham into 2 full hams (I pulled it out of the brine). Now brining a much smaller piece of ham (10 lbs) and working on recalculating my brine today. It's sitting in the old stuff right now, but it'll be in a new batch tonight. The other ham is going to get turned into something to eat on sunday.
