Curing a 9.75 pound Picnic cut that has not been enhanced. After I skinned it and trimmed the fat I ended up with 8.3 pounds of meat and bone. I did not have a container or brining bag big enough to hold the Picnic and 1 1/2 gallons of brine so I used 1.25 gallons of brine and redid my calculations on how much cure, salt, brown sugar to use for 1.25 gallons. Normally one would use 1 gallon of brine for meat up to 7 pounds and 1.5 gallons for 7-11 pounds. Us country folk just use what we got an make R work. I did a 30% pump ratio on this soon to be sweet ham. 1.25 gallon of water is 20 cups. Cure calls for 30.21 grams of cure #1 for 1.25 gallons or 5 tsp using a 30% pump rate. I used 8.75 oz of pickling salt, 13.1 oz of dark brown sugar and 1.25 tsp of ground allspice for the 30% pump rate.
Picnic ready to come out of the bag to skin and get the fat trimmed.
Used a stainless pot to mix the cure, salt, brown sugar and allspice. Water is still swirling after a brisk stir.
Poured 40 oz of the mix which is 30% of 8.3 pounds of meat which will be injected
This is the biggest container that Mamma had and it held the meat and all but 1/2 cup of the brine. It was filled to the brim and covered the meat. Got some brining bags coming for next time. Forgot to take photo before I closed the lid and did not want to open as I would spill brine all over Mamma's kitchen and I didn't want to get the "eye".
Curing for about 5 days then smoke with Hickory to IT of 165. Will set smoker to 180 cabinet temp for the cook. BBL
