Smoked Ham

I’ve been craving a good, smoked ham. Easter sounded like a good time as any to tease the senses for 4 hours.

I had to really think about what kind and size of ham to purchase. Easter time of course has many sales that go on, you can’t go more than a few minutes without hearing or seeing an add promoting “the best price” around. The first question to answer was, should it be pre-cooked, partially cooked or uncooked? After talking with others and reading about it, I decided on pre-cooked. It is MUCH easier to find a pre-cooked ham, in fact, most grocery stores do not carry partially cooked or uncooked ham. For obvious reasons, it is also easier to smoke a pre-cooked ham. It only needs to reach an internal temperature of 140F, as opposed to an uncooked at 160F. My choice ended up being a 6.5 lbs cured SilverStar Premium, Lower Sodium, Fully Cooked, Semi-Boneless Ham.

The night before, I decide to use this Smoked Ham Marinade recipe. It only took a few minutes to prepare and I was happy with how easy it was, so I knew I couldn’t go wrong.

Here is an excerpt:
” … place aluminum foil in a deep dish pan with the intent of wrapping it fully around all of the ham (to help keep the juices contained while smoking). Place the ham in the foil and coat with 1 c of pineapple juice. Using your hand or spatula, coat ham evenly with 3 oz of honey. Sprinkle 1/2 c of brown sugar over the honey and close the aluminum foil … “

The trick is, to do this all over again about 1 hour before it is finished smoking. I figured 4 hours of total time smoking would be enough to give it good flavor, so after hour 3, I repeated the above process. For the smokey flavor, I used Apple Wood Chips (soaked in water, then wrapped in foil with air holes). To help with the citrus flavor, pour a cup or so of extra pineapple juice into your water bin (if you are using one).

The result was fantastic, I would seriously do this again for larger gatherings. It was easy, smelled great (your guests will start to crave it) and provided me another excuse to fire up the smoker.

- Kyle

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