HOW TO CURE COUNTRY HAM THE OLD TIME APPALACHIAN WAY..WITH A MODERN TWIST!

hey folks this josh Tony Ridge farmer welcome to the farm vlog today you've been waiting for it you've been wanting to see it we're gonna take the hams and the jowls out of our salt box today so today I'm going to take you over we'll show you what it looks like we've already pulled all the salt off of the meat and basically we had to break it apart let me show you the tool well let's just get into the vlog so let's have a little bit of fun we're gonna teach you what we do when we take our hams out of our salt to cure them in the smokehouse and we'll put them in bags we'll show you the whole process gonna be pretty awesome [Music] [Music] since our so here's what everything looks like okay these are your hams that you see right here and a shoulder we've got Midland meat we've got fat back right there we got hog jaws right there and we'll pull these out of the box here today and we'll show you the exact process that we go through in order to preserve the meat and we'll give you a step-by-step gonna put these back over there this is a fat back and you can tell this is a Midland this has a strict lean in this well the fat back does why are you flipping them why yeah but because you don't know which way the in other words blood on the bottom of the box the wood was on the bottom of the box but I left a layer of salt let it cover it up because it will leak warmer days so you get when it gets come on then like up into the 65 or 70 degrees these things are gonna come alive gotcha okay and that's all in the curing process expansion contraction expansion contraction good so what we have here guys this is fat back and you can see it's just basically a blaze of fat a big wedge of fat and that comes from the center of the back of the hog then you have the Midland meat which is a little bit further down and it has a little streak of lean meat you can see that kind of looks like bacon all this stuff has been in here curing for about six weeks now and the temperatures have been just right well my dad was explaining to me about these hams is the curing process the the hams will warm up and cool down and warm up and cool down and expand and contract and pull salt in and push blood out and pull salt in and push moisture out so the goal is to push the blood and the moisture out so when we first got in here we had to break through the salt because it had absorbed all the moisture and turned into like a brick so today we're just going to take out two shoulders and two hams and I'll show you those and we'll show you the process as you age this is beginning to age and it's turning the color yellow yeah okay and as the ages it'll yell like yeah and then turn starts the time yellow down in here into the meat that's when it's cured okay now these are little more pieces these are the gel that comes off the gel fatback itself is put there to protect your tenderloins this little dip it into the fat bag that's what the Tenderloin laid yep getting behind that fat back there is no tenderloin on the midlands but the ribs laid against the Midland all right we're gonna get our first shoulder out isn't that a thing of beauty right there nice we're gonna set it in a box on the back of the truck Danny is cold out here wind is whipping it's a good day to do this here is a nice pretty country ham nice got something beautiful right there all the work that goes into this stuff it's really something special guys I'm glad I can share it with you alright here's our final ham we're gonna go ahead and take some of the hog jowls out there - okay we'll take two jowls out these are our hog jowls that's the jaw part of the hog right here so we'll take these hams shoulders and hog jowls and I'm gonna push them up in the back of the old truck here and we'll carry them over to the house and we'll show you the next step you know guys there's a few things here that you just can't see and I can't show you at the feel of the hams what they feel like they're really stiff and they're really really cold okay so that salt holds on to the cold and helps preserve that meat and the smells when you open up that salt box you can just smell that curing meat it's just a smell there that you know you just don't get anywhere else so I just want to tell you guys that it's a few things that I just can't I can't share it with you because you just have to be here so hopefully you decide to do this on your own sometime a very interesting part of Appalachian heritage okay so the next step in this process is we're gonna make a mixture we're gonna make a mixture in this little pan and we're gonna use this paint brush right here and we're gonna use liquid smoke and we're gonna use a little bit of water and brown sugar so you can use brown sugar you can use honey you can use white sugar whatever you want to use the reason for the sugar is to get a sticky substance on the ham so we'll rinse the hams off we'll rinse off the salt we'll let them sit out here in the wind and dry as much as we can and then we'll make the mixture it's kind of gonna be a sticky almost half the consistency of honey you just want it to stick and the reason we're doing this mixture on the outside of the ham is so that we can get our black pepper and our red pepper which is a mixture here of red pepper that was grown on the farm we'll take that mixture and we'll cover the ham with the mixture then we'll dust the ham heavily with black pepper and then we'll go to the bones on both ends of the hams and the shoulders and we'll coat them with red pepper and the reason for the red pepper on the bone is there's a certain kind of bug that likes to eat ham it likes to eat the salted meat so you can get a bug in this meat and it will destroy it so we're putting the coat of pepper on there for flavor and to keep the bugs out and the red pepper is on the bones because the type of bugs that like the bones don't like the red pepper and that keeps them out my dad was saying that he'd gone in and he'd cured hams and spent all this time and all this effort all this energy all this work and gone into the smokehouse and went to take his nice 50-pound hand down and went to go lift it and with well write to the ceiling because the bugs had gotten in and eaten everything but the skin what a disappointment that must have been but lessons learned and lessons hopefully you're gonna learn today let's get these hams out and get to work here are the jowls here are the shoulders and those two are the hams right there now folks I want you to pay extra special attention to what these hams look like before we rinse them off and then compare it to what they look like after we rinse them off okay and that's the end that's the hock in and you can see it's really dried out on the ham hock end and these are the shoulders right here just pay attention to what they look like and then what they'll look like when we're done it's gonna be really interesting see you before and after seems a little counterintuitive to wash off something you've been trying to drive for so long but this is the process big beautiful hams folks if you like this kind of stuff do you find this interesting if you find value in this content please click that like button subscribe to the channel if you're not already subscribed you know all of our videos and all of our vlogs aren't educational like this but this is just something really special we could share with you so be sure you leave a comment down there ask questions there's no reason anybody shouldn't click that like button if this is something you're interested in something you enjoy the way to give back is clicking the like button if you're interested in some t-shirts that'll mean links down there in the video description okay the next step is we're gonna put them in these baskets so that they can air dry and you want to do this on a nice windy day so that they can air dry nicely now for our smaller pieces of meat we have this little meat hook apparatus I'll post a link down below any of the tools and stuff that we use in the vlog I'll post links down below at the very bottom pretty cool pretty neat that's the hog jaw we were a nice quarter of a cup of their bounce maybe an eighth of a cup of of our warm water and then we'll mix that up and let it completely dissolve does it be ready to paint on our hams with us you don't want those thick coat don't want a double one want to coach it's for my coat and getting pretty now there we go got a good color to it the liquid smoke portion of this kind of takes away from having to make a smokehouse per se so this gives you that smoke flavor without the smokehouse and all the trouble that goes along with that guys were really really close we're probably two miles away the crow flies to Martinsville Speedway if you're a NASCAR fan mention NASCAR my vlogs quite a bit because you know we're in NASCAR country we're in racing country here so we can actually hear the cars over at the track right now doing some practicing look how pretty these hams look we've got the jowls all painted up and the hams and the shoulders all painted up I'll get you a good close-up isn't that pretty it's got a nice golden hue shining in the Sun really windy out here and it's important that we do this on a windy day so that the stuff this glaze basically dries up and gets sticky yeah let's go back over here to our ham there's a bone right here that's what we're covering to keep the bugs out once again this is to cover the bone the marrow the most certain bugs desire the marrow bone so we're trying with the red pepper we're trying our best to keep a flap from laying an egg and in its larvae beginning to survive so he's gonna lightly rub the black pepper on there and just rub it in not so much really heavy on the skin side because that's the least bone herbal side but then once we get on the other side it'll be covered very very good make sure you just don't get it on her in take your time something that's gonna cure for years for at least a year maybe 18 months maybe 16 months it's gonna be kept in a barn that's probably gonna reach temperatures of 120 degrees Fahrenheit so it's interesting it's interesting how it keeps and the cure mmm delicious and about a year and a half we'll get these hands down we'll cut them up on the vlog and show you all about it oh and I get your heart good and all that stuff there we go to forget to put black pepper also in my hop which is already red pepper it's easy to forget to do that so a little more detail in how much pepper to use here okay putting it pretty thick like a little mound of pepper and then I'll show you how I need it in here okay so take a little pepper in your hand and kind of Pat it along in there guys I'm so glad that you'd come along for the journey to learn how to do this now this is a fine art it's going to be lost at some point you know folks don't know how to do stuff like this they don't know how to preserve food and the old fashioned way the old style folks just don't know how to do it anymore and this has been passed down through generations of my family and now I'm passing it on to you so it's really something special I get you good clothes up here that's that this end right here just pack it full so here's a little detail of what we're gonna do with the paper bags we're gonna put one bag over one end of the ham or shoulder and the other bag over the other end and that's basically it this is just another barrier it also allows the ham to breathe while it's in the smokehouse hanging and it keeps the bugs out try not to tear your bag pretty much you carry your bag you're doing away with the reason you got it in the first place [Music] let's sew like a sock like a glove we're gonna tie string around the hock and then we'll wrap the ham think our stray told you it was windy out here he really can't use too much string in this situation if you just wrap it up nice and tight tie your string off nice and tight and now we're gonna drop it into our cotton bags okay and these are cotton bags that we had made at a local sewing shop but you can just use pillowcases these are a little bit too big to fit in a pillowcase okay so this is the bag that we're going to use and we're gonna stuff the ham in there and we're gonna put the ham hock and down so in other words the small end where the foot was is gonna go down and we'll tie the bag up top and we'll hang it in the okay we'll hang it in the smokehouse precious cargo right here guys okay right here hock in the corner yep you work that hot down into a corner hard work guys just worth it what we do is twist their bag up nice and tight and then we'll tie some string around it yeah you need some pretty tough string okay you want to use some nice nylon string if you have it tie it around or you can use some like commercial grade paracord if you want to use that something really really tough because you sure don't want all this work to go to waste give her string it good test closer good thing we test you you can't make that stuff up tested approved case you don't know we are five days into these two hogs five days work now we could have busted but and probably got it all done in three days but we're five days into this it's some work it's some work to process in a hog the old-fashioned way but this hog will feed a family for a whole year I mean so in the wintertime cozy up by the fire with a good old pot of pinto beans and ham hock in there just can't beat it test it yep we got two hams and two shoulders we're gonna take them up to the smokehouse we're here at the smokehouse we've got the hams and the shoulders all bagged up and we also bagged up the hog jowls and we're gonna hang them in the smokehouse right here I'll take you in real quick and show you the smokehouse this is where we boy so for the past 40 years this is where the hands are been hung basically just hang them up now while my dad's getting the area ready to hang the hams up he told me that there's a certain type of mold a certain type of fungus that grows in this building that he knows makes those hams taste absolutely perfect okay folks so we got the hams all hung up here and the smoke Shack or the smokehouse and my dad's got em all in the right position that he wants them in so that's how we cure hams here on the farm you'll get a little bit more follow up if you stick to the vlog thanks a lot guys come on back and see me we've done something pretty cool today I'm glad to share it with you click the like button we'll see you next time okay thank you [Music] so now [Applause] [Music] in summer No now [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Stoney Ridge Farmer

Views: 667,695

Rating: 4.9397469 out of 5

Keywords: stoney, ridge, farm, farming, vlog, vlogs, homesteading, homestead, prepper, grow, garden, tool, tools, deere, hunting, land, timber, chickens, smoke meat, smokehouse, smokehouse build, cure meat, cure meat at home, cure meat with salt, cure meathook, cured meat documentary, curing hams and bacon, curing hams the old way, salt curing hams, how to salt cure hams, virginia hams, old fashoned ham, country ham, smoke hams, appalachian music, appalachian mountain music, appalachian mountain people

Id: vk3FaIZhRS0

Length: 17min 39sec (1059 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 17 2018