Go to the Recipe: Sous Vide Pork Shoulder “Ham”
You all might want to check the amount of sugar listed in the main ingredients list. there seems to be a discrepancy there.
It is correct Brian. It is intended for you to enter the weight of your pork shoulder to scale the rest of the ingredients appropriately, and the 400 grams of brown sugar at the end is strictly for your glaze.
pork should be listed as 1000gm since rest of Baker's percentage is for that %age.
The ratio is different though between the main recipe and the step one sample weight recipe
Oops, that's my bad. Sorry about that.
Thanks for the heads up, there was a little glitch. it should work now.
Thanks for the heads up. There was a little glitch. It should work now.
If I wanted to do ribs would I want to back off a little on the cure since a decent amount of the weight will be bones?
An overnight dry brine is mentioned at the beginning of the recipe, but doesn’t seem to figure in to subsequent steps?
as with Russ I'd like come clearer direction on the dry brine as mentioned at the beginning of the article. Do I coat the pork with the salt,spice, brown sugar and liquid smoke dry mix overnight then put it in the SV bag when I am ready to SV? or do I use a different dry brine mixture? I have a pork shoulder at home ready to go......
The ingredient list includes cloves, I assume to stud the shoulder with. But I don't see anywhere in the actual recipe when you are supposed to do that step.
In the video, Grant adds the dry spice mix to the pork in a sous vide bag, then adds the liquid smoke, and puts the bag into the water bath for 18 hours.
Am making this now. Edited the Pork Shoulder to 2.1kg. This also scaled the "Make the Glaze" amount of brown sugar to 8.4kg! Given that the 200g of cooking liquid is fixed, then so should the glaze brown sugar. (I'm guessing that this would be 84g as in the base recipe - tried it again and the base (unscaled) glaze recipe now says 400g). Looked at the video and saw that there was a 2:1 ratio of brown sugar to liquid.
On what temperature we should bake for 20 minutes?
Ditto
I couldn't find the oven temp for roasting the ham, so I looked at the video. Grant's oven was set to 425F
How about using smoked salt to replace the salt, in lieu of using liquid smoke? Or perhaps some fraction of the salt?
where do you find a 3.5oz shoulder? Should that be 3.5#?
The ingredients need to be scaled to the size pork shoulder you purchased. Weigh it and enter the amount to get the appropriate measurements for the other stuff using the ingredient calculator.
That would work. It is really up to your flavor preference.
Where do I enter the weight of my pork shoulder? I only seem to be able to edit unit and scale
Why would something so simple as this recipe be so screwed up? Is no one running the ship? This isn't the first time this has happened.
Hi Liz, Just click the amount next to the ingredient that you want to scale (in this case, the pork shoulder) and add the actual weight. The rest of the ingredients will adjust accordingly.
What a great description of the problem, very helpful and insightful Dan!
425 °F / 218 °C
Sorry about that, there was an error in the scaling for that. It is fixed at 400g for the one ham to have extra and to be able to glaze.
The cloves are for studding the ham after it has been cooked sous vide.
All I could find was boneless pork shoulder, does this make a big difference? Throw off the ratios?
I love all things smokey! Could you do the final glaze on a grill? If so would you want to do it straight over the fire or go for a 425 temp indirect? Thanks!
That will work just fine. The bone just helps hold it together when you have to move it from the bag to your oven. Follow the weight ratios.
You will have a lot of fat coming off as it is roasting so I would say oven or indirect to avoid a flame-up.
Hi Dan, What is the problem you are running into? I would be happy to help answer whatever you need help with.
Grant mentions roasting veggies in the same tray with ham. There can be a LOT of fat in that tray depending on the fat cap size. I don't really want to roast vegetables in that much fat. Is it ok? It's not very clear for me
You can cook on a roasting rack to elevate the veggies from the fat.
Hi russ, As Mich mentioned above, Grant adds the dry spice mix to the pork in a sous vide bag, then adds the liquid smoke, and puts the bag into the water bath for 18 hours.
You can do it on the grill, just keep it in a roasting pan to catch the juices and fat running off. I do it with beef rib roasts. Indirect heat, for sure.
Hi Matthew, Just scale the ingredients to the total weight of the ribs. Weigh them and enter the amount to get the appropriate measurements for the other stuff using the ingredient calculator.
Unless you are outsourcing the cleanup or not using a non-stick roasting pan (should I have said if you are using a sticking roasting pan?) I strongly suggest lining the pan with foil. Otherwise you will be dealing with cleaning carbonized sauce from the bottom of the pan.
wow, this was terrible! executed just fine, came out as shown, tasted nothing like ham. No ham texture or taste, and the glaze is WAY too strong on anise. OK, that last part may be personal taste, but I actually like Anise and it's still overpowering. The "ham" itself, though, was a complete failure from the "is it a ham" standard. Edible, sure, but not great and definitely not a ham. This was simply glazed, mediocre pork.
I want to try this recipe but was concerned about this. Perhaps it would be worth experimenting with adding curing salt to the brine and giving it time to cure before cooking it?
I agree on the Anise. Way too overpowering. I ended up carving off the bark and then eating, still a bit too Christmasy, but decent enough. And you are right, not quite ham, but a fast version, and fast isn’t always better.
I'm a little confused about the actual cut of meat. Is that what is sometimes referred to as pernil in Latin American cooking? And if so, has the bone been removed in the piece shown?
The recipe uses a bone-in pork shoulder (same as 'pork butt'). Looks like pernil also uses pork shoulder as well.
How would it come out if I started it in the smoker rather than adding the liquid smoke?
I would say that it would add some great flavor, I would just make sure you are at a low, to no heat so that you are not cooking the shoulder at all.
I would stick with our measurements of salt and play with what ever other spice mix you want.
Every year we get a ham recipe and every year it seems to get slightly worse than the last. If your thinking about doing a ham try the recipe using the pork knuckles for little individual hams rather than this. I was really unimpressed with the results of this to be honest, I started to have doubts when I read 1.5% salt as it is what I normally do for pulled pork shoulder anyway so didn't seem like enough for ham. But I followed the recipe to the letter (and felt pretty sick adding 400g of sugar to 200g of liquid what was already 3% sugar!) and I have to say this was more like a sickly sweet pork shoulder than a ham. Maybe it was the lack of curing salts I don't know, but I really wouldn't recommend this recipe if you want to make ham.
Has anyone had success with this recipe? Was planning on cooking it for Christmas dinner until I read the comments below.
I did this recipe last weekend. I would qualify it as something to do for a fun project. I selected the lowest temperature cook from the recipe, and as the chef said it did come out looking and feeling ham-ish.
Texture and taste wise (with the normal level of fat in the shoulder and not counting the fat cap) it seemed a bit off from an actual ham.
I'm guessing this, but I think that the injected nitrates/etc in a mass marketed ham make a big difference between the flavors of this recipe and a store bought ham (probably the cut also).
In the end I would say the presentation with the citrus, cinnamon, carrots, etc. was super impressive. The ham was okay and the leftovers are going to be turned into Cuban sandwiches tomorrow so there is no loss.
Maybe this is a recipe not a made for prime time dinner yet (or for a first try at Christmas/Holiday dinner) but it is an interesting concept to play with to see where it can go from here.....
I’m doing this right now but I’m planning to serve it in a few days. After cooking it in the bag, Should I remove all the liquid from the bag and keep liquid and meat separately in the fridge? (until I stick it in the oven)
Thanks for your help.
You should leave it in the bag and let it cool with the juices. Then before you want to roast it put it back in a bath, at the cook temp, for 2 hours before you need to roast it to give it a good warm through. then follow the steps from there.
Makes sense actually! Thanks a lot.
Is it safe to serve the pork at 135f? Would Roasting the pork in the oven for 20 mjns bring it up to the temp it would need?
Does it help if you vacuum seal the pork and let it sit in the brine over night (or longer) before you actually do the SV?
Hi guys, greetings from Italy. Yesterday I've done this recipe, with little problems. I cooked with joule a pork shoulder for 18h at 68°C. The results was a little bit disappointing: some parts were overcooked. It was not so well butchered, the butcher left only tiny layers of fat, and some loose pieces of meat. Maybe the problem derived from this, during the oven-step?
I have not tried this one yet, but we do cook a lot of pork shoulder, pork tenderloin, pork rib racks. Pork is pork. If you really want what most people think of as "ham" - that color & texture - is cured pork, the only way I've found to achieve it (or turn pork belly into bacon) is by curing. That's a multi day process in the curing brine and using the pink curing salt (aka Prague powder #1 or insta-cure #1) . and then recommend to smoke it. The sodium nitrite curing is what makes pork turn into ham. when cooked the sodium nitrite breaks down in nitric oxide (harmless). This recipe seems a viable quick (in terms of hands on time) solution to make marinated pork roast, presented in "ham style" ;-)
Just got 10lbs of bone in skin on collar. Are there any changes I should make in terms of cook temp etc?
I got a pork collar but it doesn’t have fat cap on it. Should i still go through the whole glazing process described?
What do you side this ham with?
A pellet smoker grill would be perfect for this.
I used a 4 pound boneless shoulder and cooked it at the 147 F temp and it held together very well coming out of the bag. Slices beautifully as well.
Compared to other CS recipes I've had issues with this was pretty straightforward. I loved the ability to calculate the ingredients based on the ham weight. Had no problems with the ingredients, the cooking times or the glaze.
same times and temps are going to be spot on for it.
yep. same process.
the butchery is pretty important, but at that temp it will be a bit softer. also what is it resembling when you say over cooked? braised for tender? you will have some variation in the fat marbling from cut to cut and when you roast it in the oven and fat renders some time pieces slide around and fall off. we had the best results with bone in and skin on so that it was held together well.
I like mashed potatoes and roasted veggies.. but really what ever you like with a rich piece of meat.
it won't really change much since you are throwing in dry ingredients, and really the salt exchange starts to happen once the juices from the pork begin to dissolve the salt and sugar. it really isn't a brine more than a good seasoning while it cooks. if you wanted to do a brine first I would follow our guides for an equilibrium brine and just add a day to your process.
it is.
Thanks Kyl! Really appreciate all that you guys do. Looking forward to trying this 'ham' and the SV pumpkin pies and cheesecakes I've made.
Thanks Kyl
