Ham by injection only

Post Reply
sambal badjak
Frequent User
Frequent User
Posts: 173
Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2013 15:41
Location: In the hot Zambezi Valley
Contact:

Ham by injection only

Post by sambal badjak » Wed Apr 04, 2018 06:25

I am just wondering:
Could you make ham from a chunck of pork by only injecting the appropriate amount of cure?
Or do you have to immerse it in a brine as well?
life is too short to drink bad wine (anonymus)
User avatar
redzed
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 3852
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 06:29
Location: Vancouver Island

Post by redzed » Wed Apr 04, 2018 08:04

The purpose of injection is to speed up the curing process usually by half the time or less. In large processing plants meats are injected by machines with hundreds of fine needles and hams can be cured in one day. They are still held in brine though, so that the brine does not drip out and the salt and nitrite equalizes in the meat. I don't believe hobbyists and small producers can do this.
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Wed Apr 04, 2018 12:18

Never done it that way but The German Butcher on Youtube does He uses two different brine strengths. If the ham is to be boiled you make a 10% brine using Cure 1 as your salt and for a pan fried ham you make a 6% solution. Using either of these solutions you liberally inject the ham with as much brine as possible then place the ham in the container containing the brine you prepared and leave it overnight. The next day you place the ham in a mould and poach the ham in 80C water bath for 20 minutes per pound. Ham he produced looked pretty good but I have no idea on the flavor or saltiness.
sambal badjak
Frequent User
Frequent User
Posts: 173
Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2013 15:41
Location: In the hot Zambezi Valley
Contact:

Post by sambal badjak » Thu Apr 05, 2018 06:14

Thanks for the replies:
Butterbean: the method you describe still places the injected piece of meat in a brine with cure #1, doesn't it? So not only inhjecting?
Redzed: I get your point. The cure could leach out and you can't inject in enough places to make sure the meat is cured all over.

I figured there had to be a reason why it's generally done with an immersion cure......
life is too short to drink bad wine (anonymus)
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Thu Apr 05, 2018 07:06

Right enough, it does go in the brine overnight. Here is a video of what he did. Never done it this way but it looks pretty efficient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MJZm-Xa3ik

In some of the side videos there is one on stitch pumping by Meatlogistics. Here they pump 15% brine by weight and then the meat goes in a tumbler. I assume tumbling distributes the brine inside the meat so it doesn't need to sit in brine overnight.
Post Reply