Glazed deer hams

First off the story should be sweet deer hams as they glazing didn’t go so well. My wife was in Tennessee visiting her family and she doesn’t always help with deer meat, its not her favorite. She loves Bologna though. So I call my M-I-L and I get some advice from her, but she’s not a lot of help either as she can’t “See” it. She’s an old school cook and doesn’t hardly use recipes, its all cook by sight and taste. My wife has spent years trying to copy her recipes and writing them down.

So if you look back at my dried beef/deer/goose you will get the recipe for this. Above is all the rump roast groups I got out of one buck. They were cured for ten day, which in retrospect maybe should have been longer. I’m still searching sage advisers on the internet for reviews and advice. I tried to run it shorter and hotter to stay more moist but did this during a work day and work tends to get in the way sometimes and I lost track of it some times and let it cool down some. Smoked flat roasts to 170° and football roasts to 160°.

The Glaze is good, but I a not sure if I need to set it at a  higher temperature or use another glaze. I’d appreciate input from some people I know following me that cook a lot! Here is my recipe I used and I doubled it for this.

Glaze used:

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 Tbsp Honey

1Tbsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp Pineapple juice

I tired to glaze them in the smokehouse, but that was a huge failure. I got syrup on my jacket, all over the smokehouse  and all over the stones in front. The dog was trying to get around my feet while basting and lick it all up. I just quit and finished cooking and brought them in to glaze in the oven.

So after being finished I brought them in and set the oven to 200° to try and set this glaze, but I’m not sure that was hot enough. I was out of my element with out good advisers. Maybe it should have been hotter, but I was afraid to cook it more. I’ll follow up with the wife and M-I-L and see what they think. They always seem to advise me best AFTER something went wrong, but are deadly silent when I ask “What should I do”.

In all of the event I think it went well by this review. My daughter came home from substitute teaching and college and we were to have soup for diner as left overs. She started begging to have some of the hams. I told her no, so she started tilting the pan and eating the juice. I had to cut one tip off so she could eat some to shut her up. So the first critic liked it.

Now, here is a things I had no idea about. The devil is in the details and screw one thing up and damn! If you take moist hams, just glazed and put them all in one pan and cover it in foil you will screw your glaze up! Moisture builds under the foil and washing or melting it off. My wife is always “cover it” and its been drilled into me. I call my M-I-L and hear “Yea, I wouldn’t have covered it.” 😦 So I air dry my meat in the fridge so I don’t wipe the smoke off of it. Then I make more glaze and start glazing it. I bake it low again. Let it sit over night again.

Above is one of the flat roasts ready to be sliced. I sliced some on 4 and some on 3 and I’ll see what reviews I get later on and adjust from people preferences.

Above we have two of the flat roast sliced and ready for vacuum sealing

One gift package ready for Santa’s sleigh.

You can see one some of the slices from my football roast I have a light colored area. I am not sure if they didn’t cure all the way or this is normal. The flat roast didn’t have this. This is what I spoke of about speaking with my sage advisers on the internet.

Enjoy.

[EDIT]

After speaking with some of my knowledgeable sources, It has been determined that I might have been able to use just a  bit more cure and the temperature in my fridge was too cold. I dropped a mason jar in the middle shelf with 1 1/2″ of water and a temperature probe in it so I could turn it on from the outside and check it. I read 34° and was told that will slow your curing down. I tested my fridge settings with the mason jar and the water over several days.

Fridge settings

1.  – 45°
2.  – 43°
3.  – 41°
4.  – 39°
5.  – 37°
6.  – 34°

My curing sage, Bearcarver, told me to aim for 38° or about 4.5 and I might just try 4 for 39° and monitor the fridge while doing it.

Be prepared for Glazed Ham – Volume 2 in the near future as I am starting back up hunting Saturday and hope to dust one off early. 2 days for butchering, ten in the fridge. Maybe 2 weeks later we might have another story. I am going to try one football whole and one sliced in half for thickness. I will also cook in the smokehouse until 140° Internal temperature (IT) and bring in tho the over at 300° – 350° for finishing and glazing.