Immersion Cured Hams

There is something satisfying about knowing your ham is fully dunked in the cure. There's nothing woolly about it. Wet cures and dry cures leave plenty of scope for user error but what can got wrong once your meat is fully in the bucket. I will post a few simple immersion recipes. What they have in common is the requirement for a non metallic container, large enough for the cure and meat and ideally small enough to squeeze into the fridge next to the lager and ready meals.

Jane Grigson - Saumure Anglaise
First published in 1967, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery is an excellent reference book and an illuminating window on a time when English gastronauts were discovering life beyond the British Isles. Ironic then that she should return with Saumure Anglaise. A word of caution though, Jane Grigson's cures tend to be rather heavy on the saltpetre and in many countries these doses would be beyond the legal limit.
Saumure Anglaise pour la fabrication du Jambon d'York. This English brine produces a good jambon blanc. A joint of pork left in it for two or three days is greatly improved. This is the best one to keep in an all-purpose brine crock.

5 pints of soft or rain water
3/4 lb sea salt
3/4 lb granulated or brown sugar
2 oz saltpetre

Put all these into a large pan and bring very slowly to the boil, giving them the occasional stir.
Meanwhile cut a small square of clean linen or muslin, large enough to hold:
1 level teaspoon juniper berries
small piece of nutmeg
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs of thyme
1 level teaspoon peppercorns
4 cloves

Tie up in the cloth so that nothing falls out. Add to the cure mix and allow the mixture to cool. This can take quite a while.
Add your piece of meat to the brine crock and stir every few days. After three days you will have a very mild salt pork cure. At six days the thinner pieces such as the belly will be fully cured and ready. After seven days, leg and shoulder of pork should be ready. The brine can be used again and again only you must reinforce your brine as curing each item will remove salts. Reboil and add further cure ingredients, the old yardstick being that the density of the salt solution is enough to float a fresh egg. However, by this stage I think you're making it up and should really consider throwing the old cure away and starting fresh.

Easy Ham Recipe - reproduced from sauagemaking.org forum
This is a more up-to-date recipe with a more appropriate nitrate/nitrite level

3 Gallons ice cold water
6oz sea salt
6oz cure No. 1
1 level tbsp ground white pepper
20 bayleaves or 1tbsp ground bayleaf
1 tbsp ground cloves
3oz brown sugar or replace 3 pints of the water with 3 pints coca cola (not diet)

This should make enough brine for a whole ham. Use a food grade plastic container and leave to cure in a fridge for 14 days turning daily. When the cure is finished drain and dry the ham thoroughly.


Ham Recipe using Cure #1 - reproduced from sauagemaking.org forum

Water 1000 gm (ml)
Salt 130 gm
Sugar 110 gm
Cure #1 32 gm

Total 1272 gm

Use half white sugar and half demerara or dark brown sugar.
Flavourings - In the last ham for example, to a 3 litre of water mix we added 10 Juniper Berries, 4 Cloves, 10 Black Pepper Corns, 4 Parsley Stalks, 1 sprig Thyme, 2 Bay Leaves and 6 Coriander seeds.

Method
Find a container that the meat fits in closely, but not tightly. Work out how much brine you need - if the meat is vac packed you can use water to find out! Calculate your brine.

Weigh your ingredients out and after bashing the spices about a bit, weigh them.
Bring the Water (or some of it), Salt, Sugar and spices to a boil and leave to cool.
When cold, weigh and add water to make it up. That is, add up the weight of the water, salt, sugar and spices and make up the brine with water to this amount. Mix in the cure #1.

Weigh your meat and measure out 10% of its weight in brine. Inject this into the meat in lots of different places (That's different places in the meat, not different places around the house or country - although that would be more fun. ) So if, for example, your meat is 3172 gm you would inject 317 gm of brine, in total, into the meat.
Put the meat into your container with the remaining brine. Leave, in the fridge, for 7 - 10 days (longer won't hurt) turning the meat over every day or so - or in my case when I remember.
Rinse in cold water, and cook. Poach in a large pan with the water at 75 to 80C until the internal temperature of the meat is 68C. I hold it at this temperature for 1/2 to 1 hour.