The Easter Ham

This will be a quick post. If you remember ALL THE WAY back to 2020, I tried my first Christmas ham. It was requested by family, and I had to do it right. Naturally, I bought one to test and presented a delicious, crowd pleasing pig product. Given that ham is an Easter staple for most, I shall deliver you another double smoked ham.

It’s definitely a compliment to get asked to “do that again”, but let’s be real, ForensicBBQ.com doesn’t benefit from duplicate recipes. Especially when the request is the same ham. The recipe is the same recipe link from before, but let’s see what this year brought us.

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Recipe

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The Prep Table

You know I’m using that homemade seasoning blend whenever I can. And ever since I started making my most requested recipe – the Candy Bacon – I’ve become a big fan of Smithfield. That’ll no doubt change when I start making my own bacon, but when I started shopping around for pig – I had to get the Smithfield ham.

Ain’t no secrets here. The ham is cooked, the ham’s been smoked. We’re just heating it up again, adding some more smoke and make it more seasoned and sweet. The pictured bowl will hold a pile of syrup and a squirt of honey – roughly 3:1. I like the whiskey barrel syrup.. because I like syrup. And I like whiskey.

What we do here is glove up and get dirty. Peel back a layer of the ham and brush the honey-syrup on there. What I did this go around was brush all the syrup on first. Actually peeled back each layer, brushed some syrup on there, rinse and repeat. I then pressed the ham back together to make sure the sticky goodness got on both sides.

I then re-peeled back each layer and threw some of that proprietary Fine Swine seasoning on each layer. Pressed it back together and then stabbed it with three skewers. Go back and read what I learned with the skewer method for last year’s ham – it works.

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The Process

Fire up that RecTeq, the Lang, the Traeger – whatever you got and get it holding steady at 225. We’re actually only reheating, so we’re going to keep adding heat until that ham is looking good.

What we’re doing is throwing this on for about 3 hours or so. As this thing grabs the smoke, grabs the heat, the slices are going to start separating. The skewers keeps it together and presentable. About every hour, go ahead and hit it with some more syrup/honey. If it wasn’t requested to make the same ham, I was thinking about building a brown sugar crust on the exterior – but maybe I’ll venture out next year.

That front piece takes on the most smoke, no doubt. When it starts getting that crispy look, get rid of those skewers and give it a faceplate into the pan. Not only does this give the front piece of ham a beautiful bath in the juice, but it also pushes the ham back together after it’s heated separation.

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The Result

When it’s time to drive to the family’s house – or roughly 3 hours in the smoke – Pull it and ready it for transport. I gave it one last brush of glaze, transferred it to a clean half pan and topped it with a foil wrap. This looked AMAZING. Let’s hope the family enjoys it.

The family enjoyed it. It definitely looked better than the 2020 ham, and the taste was spot on. It’s so good, you eat so much of it and wait until next year. Let’s see what I can do to mix it up, I’m really looking forward to adding a sugar bark on the crust, but sometimes you just have to duplicate what you do. Both MrsForensicBBQ and I wish you and your families a Happy Easter!

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The Recipe