1st Kick At Double Smoked Ham....And It Is Dry

Started with a 5.5 pound Cooks butt bone in hickory smoked ham without the spiral. Injected with juice from a can of pinnaples, scored it 1/8th to a 1/4 inch deep and coated in a very thin layer of ground cloves. Got the kettle up to about 260f or so and smoked with oak, black cherry and one hunk of hickory for about 3 hours till it was 120f internal. Ham was cooked in a baking pan with with no water bath over the coals. Glazed it with a combo of dark maple syrup, brown sugar, molases, corn syrup, ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, a tablespoon of water, mustard powder and about a tablespoon of Bowmore single malt Scotch. After about 40 minutes of glazing and an internal of 141f at the deepest and 151f on the outside:





My plate....the wife made homemade bread, scalloped taters and asparagus spears:



A ten being dry and 0 being flat out moist this was a 6. Not sure what I did wrong here...there are so many variables. I did not spritz or mop at any point...no water bath...scoring the meat? It was tasty meat with nice smoke flavour, just a little too dry.

CustomBBQ said:

Maybe too much heat for it.

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Perhaps. My grate temp was between 250-260f for almost the whole cook. Maybe it should have been lower?

IamMadMan said:

Indirect heat has always worked well for me, also the resting period (tented) is important to redistribute the juices. I pull the ham about 136-137° and during the rest period the meat will climb to 141° or slightly above.

Cutting into the ham without resting bleeds the juices from the ham which can cause it to become dry. I also think a lower indirect heat gently warms the ham rather than cooking it further along, but that is my personal opinion based on past experience.

Here is a link to a previous post on "Dr. Chicken's Double Smoked Ham" .. Although I do not follow all of the ingredients, I do follow the temperature, indirect low and slow heating, and the rest periods.

Also remember if you are not using an instant read thermometer it could take up to three minutes to register the real temperature of the meat on the thermometer.

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I had read about Dr Chicken's recipie and thought I was following it...but quoting from that post, "be sure you keep your cooker down to that 260° as a maximum on the dome." This was my grate temp that I shot for. I have a thermometer that I put in the top vent of the kettle that is 40-60f above grate temp and it never went above 300f so I thought I was good. Now reading the post again and that part I quoted I wonder how far above the grate temp the dome thermometer on the fellas egg was/is? Also - reading the Dr Chicken recipie I now notice that the scoring of the meat was mentioned in his "oven" instructions. As I read this now it is unclear whether he intends this for his "ceramic cooker" instructions.

The cook was done indirect with no water pan....I figured the pinnaple juices from the ham in the pan would provide moisture. I did rest the ham. Thing is I removed the live coals from the cooker and without foiling left the ham in the pan on the kettle for about an hour.

I used my maverick to read the internal temp of 2 different spots and left them in for the tail end of the cook. My temp at the end of the cook was running on the low side - about 225 grate so instead of pulling at 135f I shot for 140f.

Bratylten said:

Did you keep the ham covered with tinfoil until you started the glazing?

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No tinfoil at all. I wanted to put smoke to it but could have foiled it during the rest. Probably should have but I wanted to preserve the bark. I do this for uncooked shoulders and like the end product so decided to do it for this ham. Been getting away from foil lately and using cut up brown paper bags from the grocery store at times. I remove the glue stips from the bottom and side.....I do this as obtaining untreated butchers paper where I am is problematic.