This isn’t an original recipe. It was given to me.
Throw away the glaze packet
Make glaze½ cup Orange Juice
½ cup Apple Juice
¼ cup Brown Sugar
¼ cup Honey
Sugar Mix½ cup Brown Sugar
½ cup Natural Sugar in the Raw (Turbinado Sugar)
½ tea Ground Ginger
½ tea Cinnamon
½ tea Fresh Ground Nutmeg
½ tea Spanish Paprika
Directions1. Rub the ham with the glaze squirted from a bottle. (Put ham in a pan to reduce mess.)
2. Shake on a heavy coating of the sugar mix and pat it to ensure sticking
3. Smoke at 275° to 300° 2½ to 3 hours
4. Drizzle glaze liquid on each hour to keep it moist
5. Pull it at 140° IT
Here’s what it looked like when I unwrapped it.
It went into my Cookshack Fast Eddy PG-500 set at 290°. (For Fast Eddy owners—the LHt was 20 with HHt at 75.) The ambient temperature was 32° F with a variable wind that never exceeded 10 mph. The light blue smoke was fairly constant. Temperatures swung from 267° to 293°. I was happy with that.
The salesman told me that I would love my PG-500. He was right. I felt good about its performance.
I squirted more glaze on each hour. At the two-hour point I slipped a temperature probe in the thick part. It only registered 68°. What the…? I suppose that the 2½ to 3-hour projected cooking time was correct if the ham had been at room temperature before cooking. Mine was straight from the refrigerator. I don't recall being told to have it at room temperature. Maybe he thought that I would know that.
I had guests coming to eat and watch the two semi-final National Championship football games. I had only allowed three hours for cooking.
I raised the temperature setpoint to 350° and the HHt to 100. The temperatures swung between 333° and 356°. The internal temperature still wasn’t climbing fast enough to make my projected dinner time.
At the 2½ hour point I raised the setpoint to 400°. After 15 more minutes the pit temperature was only 389° and climbing very slowly so I changed the HHt to 120. The pit temperature swung between 390° and 400°.
After 3½ hours of cooking the IT was 100° and I removed it from the pit. The high temperatures charred the glaze making it inedible (like a rock).
But it was an excellent ham otherwise. It had smoke and glaze flavor. We hurriedly ate and watched the Seminoles get thumped.
I’ll do another ham using this recipe but I’ll start with it at room temperature. I could allow more cooking time but I think that’ll just increase the possibility of drying it out.
